On Sep 2, CME Group Inc. (CME) announced that August 2009 volume averaged 10.2 million contracts per day, assuming combined CME Group and NYMEX volumes. That’s down 7% from Aug 2008, but up 5% compared to July 2009. The monthly volume marked the best year-over-year performance to date in 2009.
Total monthly volume was 214 million contracts, 81% of which were traded electronically. Total electronic volume averaged 8.3 million contracts per day, down 6% from the prior year but up 5% from July 2009.
Average daily volume cleared on CME ClearPort was 440,000 contracts for the month, up 7% compared with August 2008. This continued to highlight the market participants’ increased interest in the safety and soundness of CME’s regulated, transparent, and centrally cleared markets.
Year-to-date volume averaged 10.2 million contracts per day. Interest rates volume increased 14% sequentially, whereas FX volume and commodities and alternative investments volume experienced an annual decrease of 7% and 14%, respectively.
CME is the largest futures exchange in the world, offering the widest range of benchmark products covering all major asset classes, specifically futures products and options on futures. The broad product groups are futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, commodities, energy & metals, and also alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.
CME also announced its New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) will end its No. 2 heating oil contract with the August 2012 futures. This is due to regulators’ proposals for new sulfur-content specifications. NYMEX will not list additional contract months in the New York Harbor No. 2 heating oil futures contract beyond the existing August 2012 contract month, due to the upcoming, proposed regulatory changes related to the sulfur content of heating oil in the New York Harbor area.
Though we remain optimistic about the continued growth prospects, especially with good progress on the integration of the recent acquisitions and the global expansion initiatives, relative valuation looks stretched and volumes may continue to be near current levels until the underlying markets stabilize.
Therefore, we are maintaining our Hold recommendation on the shares.
Read the full analyst report on “CME”
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