Massive record for futures and options in May
18 Jun 2010
by Jon Hay +44 207 779 8372
May was a record month for the global futures and options markets – and by a huge margin. Now that nearly all derivatives exchanges have reported their trading volumes, FOi’s database reports that 2.204bn contracts changed hands in the month.
That beat the previous record of 1.888bn in September 2008, the month when Lehman Brothers collapsed. May 2010’s trading was 16.7% busier than that – an astonishing margin of one sixth.
The next biggest month was October 2008, with 1.681bn contracts, before volume plunged to around 1.2bn contracts a month for the next four months – similar to levels in 2007.
For a whole year, from March 2009 to February 2010, the market was then stuck on about 1.5bn trades a month.
It is only in March, April and May that volumes have really rebounded, to 1.767bn, then 1.797bn and...