When Eurex US announced that its trading incentive programme would become active on 12 July many in the industry questioned the exchange's timing. With July and August traditionally the quietest months of the year in derivatives markets, observers asked how the new exchange could expect to improve its volumes when the trading community was idle.
However, there have been signs that the summer months are no longer a time for trading rooms to empty en masse. On 6 August trading records in several individual contracts were broken at both Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Board of Trade (CBoT).
Overall, nearly 6.3m contracts were traded on CME and over 4m on CBoT, respectively the exchanges' second and third busiest days ever. Both all time records were set in May this year.
CBoT's head of business development, Bob Ray, said that he believed the high August volumes were a product...