Just two weeks shy of its tenth anniversary, volumes over the Globex electronic trading platform of Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) exceeded one million contracts for the first time in a single day yesterday, 12 June.
The 1,028,191 contracts traded represented a 9 percent increase from the previous daily record of 943,953 contracts set on June 4.
The rise in volumes is some small vindication for the Chicago exchange's perserverence with Globex, which initially struggled to get off the ground after being conceived in the late 1980s in a joint venture with Reuters.
E-mini S&P 500 futures also set a new record yesterday, passing the 600,000 volume mark for the first time. E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures also posted the busiest trading day since their 1999 launch yesterday, with 330,127 contracts traded.
The CME filed registration papers with the SEC just two days ago for an IPO expected to value the exchange at $150 million. Proceeds from the IPO - the first for a US financial exchange - are expected to go on possible acquisitions and technology platform upgrades.