CHICAGO, Jan. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced 2018 average daily volume (ADV) reached a record 19.2 million contracts, up 18 percent from 2017. During 2018, 91 trading days exceeded 20 million contracts, up from 34 days in 2017. 

CME Group reached multiple annual average daily volume records in 2018. Highlights include: 

• Record Interest Rate ADV, up 22 percent to 9.95 million contracts
• Record Metals ADV, up 12 percent to 638,000 contracts
• Record FX ADV, up 9 percent to 1 million contracts
• Record full-year 2018 options ADV, up 14 percent to 3.9 million contracts, including record electronic options ADV, up 20 percent to 2.6 million contracts.

Fourth-quarter 2018 volume averaged 20.8 million contracts per day, up 31 percent from the same period a year ago. CME Group reached several quarterly ADV records including Equity Index ADV of 4.5 million contracts, Interest Rate electronic options ADV of 1.5 million contracts and Energy options ADV of 376,000 contracts. December 2018 volume averaged 20.2 contracts per day, up 36 percent from December 2017. Open interest at the end of December was 116 million contracts, up 7 percent from the end of December 2017.

Equity Index volume averaged a record 5.1 million contracts per day in December 2018, up 73 percent from December 2017. Highlights include:

• Record E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures and options ADV, up 121 percent to 743,000 contracts
• Record E-mini Russell 2000 futures, up 38 percent to 245,000 contracts
• Record E-mini S&P Select Sector Index futures and options ADV, up 91 percent to 32,000 contracts
• E-mini S&P 500 futures and options ADV increased 68 percent to 3.6 million contracts, including E-mini S&P 500 futures ADV, up 73 percent to 2.7 million contracts
• E-mini S&P 500 Weekly options ADV rose 53 percent to 376,000 contracts
• E-mini Dow futures and options ADV rose 143 percent to 347,000 contracts

Interest Rate volume averaged 10.2 million contracts per day in December 2018, up 48 percent from December 2017. Highlights include:

• Record Fed Fund futures ADV, up 174 percent to 400,000 contracts 
• U.S. Treasury futures and options ADV increased 46 percent to 4.8 million contracts, including U.S. Treasury futures ADV, up 41 percent to 3.8 million contracts, and U.S. Treasury options ADV, up 68 percent to 987,000 contracts
• Weekly Treasury options ADV rose 50 percent to 155,000 contracts
• Eurodollar futures and options ADV grew 44 percent to 5 million contracts, including Eurodollar futures and options electronic ADV, up 52 percent to 4 million contracts
• Ultra U.S. Treasury Bond futures and options ADV increased 53 percent to 161,000 contracts and Ultra 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note futures and options increased 56 percent to 188,000 contracts

Options volume averaged 4 million contracts per day in December 2018, up 32 percent from December 2017. Highlights include:

• Electronic options ADV grew 39 percent to 2.7 million contracts
• Interest Rate options ADV increased 40 percent to 2.4 million contracts
• Equity Index options ADV rose 48 percent to 974,000 contracts
• Agricultural options ADV grew 2 percent to 169,000 contracts
• Metals options ADV increased 28 percent to 59,000 contracts

Foreign Exchange volume averaged 1 million contracts per day in December 2018, flat compared with December 2017. Highlights include:

• Japanese yen futures and options grew 7 percent to 177,000 contracts
• Australian dollar futures and options ADV rose 11 percent to 113,000 contracts
• Canadian dollar futures and options ADV rose 10 percent to 105,000 contracts

Energy volume averaged 2.3 million contracts per day in December 2018, down 2 percent from December 2017. Highlights include:

• WTI Crude Oil futures and options ADV increased 18 percent to 1.5 million contracts
• Gasoline futures and options ADV grew 1 percent to 174,000 contracts
• Brent Crude Oil futures and options ADV rose 27 percent to 94,000 contracts

Agricultural volume averaged 1 million contracts per day in December 2018, down 5 percent from December 2017. Highlights include:

• Corn futures and options ADV grew 12 percent to 267,000 contracts
• Livestock futures ADV increased 5 percent to 105,000 contracts
• Live Cattle futures and options ADV rose 7 percent to 63,000 contracts
• Lean Hog futures and options ADV grew 5 percent to 46,000 contracts
• Hard Red Winter Wheat increased 1 percent to 35,000 contracts
• Wheat options ADV rose 21 percent to 26,000 contracts

Metals volume averaged 439,000 contracts per day in December 2018, down 17 percent from December 2017. Highlights include: 

• Precious Metals options ADV increased 28 percent to 58,000 contracts
• Gold options ADV grew 32 percent to 52,000 contracts
• Silver options ADV rose 5 percent to 6,000 contracts

BrokerTec fixed income and EBS foreign exchange December trading activity highlights, in terms of average daily notional value, include: 

• U.S. Treasury average daily notional value increased 35 percent to $200.8 billion
• Spot FX average daily notional value rose 16 percent to $76.2 billion
• European Repo average daily notional value increased 14 percent to €254.5 billion

Footnote: To see CME Group daily over-the-counter (OTC) notional cleared volumes and open interest, monthly OTC notional cleared volumes and monthly total trade count, go to http://www.cmegroup.com/education/cme-volume-oi-records.html

^[1] Volume information includes UST Benchmarks and Agencies. Off-the-Run securities, including T-Bills, are provided pursuant to an agreement with ICAP Securities USA LLC.

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.  With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec, EBS, TriOptima, and Traiana are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD, EBS Group LTD, TriOptima AB, and Traiana, Inc., respectively.  Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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SOURCE CME Group