OREANDA-NEWS. April 23, 2018. CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced that it reached an all-time high quarterly international average daily volume (ADV) of 4.7 million contracts during first quarter 2018, up 38 percent over the same period last year.

EMEA quarterly average daily volume hit an all-time high of 3.7 million contracts per day in the first quarter of 2018, up 37 percent from first quarter 2017.  This was driven largely by strong performance in Commodities, with Agricultural Commodities up 53 percent and Metals up 49 percent.

APAC quarterly average daily volume was also at an all-time high of 923,000 contracts per day in the first quarter of the year, up 41 percent from the corresponding period last year.  This was driven largely by a strong performance across both the financial and commodities product suite, with Equity Index volumes up 117 percent, Metals up 75 percent, Foreign Exchange up 56 percent, and Energy up 43 percent.

"With CME Group's broad array of futures and options products available virtually round the clock, our EMEA-based customers are increasingly realizing the benefits of trading on our exchanges as they look to hedge their risks," said William Knottenbelt, Senior Managing Director and Head of International, CME Group.

"Record quarterly volumes from our franchise in Asia Pacific in the first quarter of the year signal that market participants in the region are realizing the benefits of managing their risks on a robust, liquid and regulated marketplace like ours," said Christopher Fix, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific, CME Group.  "We will continue to be committed to helping our clients in the region with their hedging and trading needs."

Globally, CME Group reached an all-time high quarterly average daily volume of 22.2 million contracts during first-quarter 2018, up 30 percent from first-quarter 2017.  CME Group first-quarter 2018 also saw record options volume, averaging 4.9 million contracts per day, up 31 percent versus first-quarter 2017, with electronic options averaging a record 3.1 million contracts per day, up 45 percent over the same period last year. 

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage risk.  CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  Around the world, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform.