Over the past year, derivatives trading activity has been affected by a return to the equity market after several major indices reached record level. While index products have performed well, other derivatives have seen lower trading volumes.
Derivatives exchanges saw mixed performance in January, though CME Group posted high volume growth after strong demand for its Eurodollar products.
CME saw an average of 12.9 million contracts traded each day in January 2014, totaling 271 million contracts, up 13% compared with January 2013.
Eurodollar contracts were the best performers; with Eurodollar futures average daily volume (ADV) growing 34% between 2013 and 2014, while ADV for Eurodollar options increased by 92% to 830,000 contracts.
Treasury futures trading dropped 5% over the same period to 2.3 million contracts per day and treasury options grew by 8% to 575,000 contracts.
Equity index derivatives were also up, with ADV growing 24% to 2.6 million contracts.
However, rival IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) saw depressed trading volumes across its futures and options products. Total equity derivatives trading dropped 14% year-on-year to 83 million contracts in January, while financials fell 28% to 52 million.
However, ICE saw stronger performance of its commodity futures and options, meaning total trading fell only 9% across all categories.
Its European derivatives trading business LIFFE, acquired when ICE completed its acquisition of NYSE Euronext in November last year, was flat over the course of the year, with 613,000 contracts traded last month, down 1% from the 617,000 seen in January 2013.
Deutsche Börse-owned Eurex also saw flat trading volumes, with ADV of 8.5 million contracts in January 2014 compared to 8.6 million in the same period last year.
Equity index derivatives were a strong performer for Eurex, with volume reaching a total of 58.4 million for the month, up 18% from 47.9 million last year. However, other equity derivatives and single stock futures dropped 19.7% to 23.5 million contracts.