Global trading of futures and options contracts jumped 26 percent last year, with Asian dominating trade for the first time, the Futures Industry Association said on Tuesday [March 15].
Contracts traded on Asian derivatives exchanges surged 43 percent to 8.86 billion contracts in 2010, the FIA, a Washington-based industry group, said in its annual report. Trading in North America, which until 2009 had listed derivatives trading, rose 13 percent to 7.17 billion contracts in 2010. All told, 22.3 billion futures and options contracts changed hands at exchanges around the world last year.
A resurgence in interest-rate futures trading helped lift volumes globally, though the biggest increases came in contracts tied to grains and other agricultural products and non-precious metals.
The futures industry's return to rapid growth, after a drop in interest-rate futures trading in 2009 in the wake of the global credit crisis, comes as a wave of consolidation is sweeping financial markets. Last month alone, Deutsche Boerse AG bid for NYSE Euronext, the London Stock Exchange offered to buy Toronto Stock Exchange parent TMX Group Inc., and BATS Global Markets bid for fellow private venue operator Chi-X Europe.
Trading in Asia was led by the Korea Exchange, which handled 3.8 billion contracts, making it the world's most active derivatives market last year. Most of its business is in its popular Kopsi 200 stock-index options, the FIA said.
CME Group Inc., which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the New York Mercantile Exchange, was the second-largest exchange operator by volume, handling 3.1 billion contracts last year.
Trading in contracts tied to grains and other agricultural products surged 40.7 percent globally last year, and trading in non-precious metals like copper rose 39.1 percent.
The FIA's survey tracks volume from 78 derivatives exchanges around the world.
