CME Group’s volume report for 2008, released on Monday, gave scope for pleasure and disappointment. The US derivative exchange group achieved a record trading volume of 3.3bn contracts, 4% up from a year ago, its eighth consecutive year of growth. But its core product complex, interest rate derivatives, continued to shrink in December.
Interest rate volumes fell for the eighth straight month, dropping 49% from December 2007 to an average daily volume of...