The international derivatives exchange Eurex saw new trading records earlier this week: on 22 January, turnover reached a new record with roughly 17 million contracts, the previous record was 15.5 million contracts (achieved on 6 June 2007).
On 23 January, another 15.3 million contracts were traded. Average daily volume in January 2008 stands at approx. 9.4 million contracts, in 2007 it was 7.5 million contracts. This results in overall volume of 150 million contracts as of 23 January 2008, compared with a total monthly volume of 132.2 million contracts in January 2007.
Strong trading was seen in the benchmark equity index derivatives. The options on DJ Euro STOXX 50 scored a new daily record with 2.9 million contracts on Monday; 2.7 million contracts on Tuesday are the second-best result, another 2.4 million on Wednesday. Volumes in the future on this index were also high with 4.3 million contracts traded on Tuesday and 3..5 million on Monday and Wednesday. The DAX option had its second-best result on Wednesday with 788,203 contracts; Monday saw 762,779 contracts, followed by 753,550 contracts on Tuesday.
Within the segment interest rate derivatives, the Euro Bund future recorded 2.4 million contracts on Tuesday, the Euro Schatz Futures 1.6 million contracts and Euro Bobl Futures 1.5 million contracts, significantly heavier trading relative to normal trading volumes. Altogether, the segment had a daily turnover on Tuesday of 5.6 million futures and 526,051 options.
On Monday, 21 January 2008, a new daily record was also achieved in trading of EUA futures on the market for emission allowances operated by European Energy Exchange AG (EEX) and Eurex: for the first time, 400,000 EUAs were traded. In January, a total of 3 million EUAs have already been traded as of Wednesday. Total monthly volume in December 2007 was roughly 1.4 million EUAs.
In conjunction with the trading records, the Eurex system recorded a remarkable rise in order and quotes volumes. Average daily quotes volume in 2007 was around 200 million, this figure more than doubled and set a new record on Wednesday with 550 million quotes. Despite these record volumes, round-trip-times remained stable.