CME Group announced on Tuesday that it achieved a record daily volume of foreign exchange (FX) futures on its derivatives platform, reaching 3.26 million contracts with a notional value of $314 billion on June 12.
Additionally, CME’s anonymous and all-to-all spot-futures spread trading tool, FX Link, hit a single-day volume record of 113,662 contracts, amounting to a notional value of $10.5 billion on the same day.
“Achieving two all-time volume records on June 12 is a significant milestone for CME Group FX products and is testament to the continued growth that we have seen in client segments, currency pairs, and overall liquidity over many months,” said Paul Houston, CME Group’s Global Head of FX Products.
The latest FX futures record surpassed the previous high of 3.15 million contracts with a notional value of $296 billion set on March 8, 2023.
For FX Link, the recent figure represents a 37 percent increase over the prior peak of 82,900 contracts with a notional volume of $7.2 billion, achieved on June 16, 2022. FX Link’s volume surged over 52 percent year-over-year.
FX Link provides a central limit order book on CME Globex for trading spreads between OTC FX spot and CME FX futures, bridging the two markets.
“FX Link will play a crucial role in our new CME FX Spot+ marketplace as we prepare for client testing in the second half of 2024,” Houston added.
“The improved liquidity, tighter spreads, and increasing client participation build an even stronger foundation for delivering value to market participants in the future.”
Shuo Wu, Deutsche Bank’s Global Head of Forward eTrading, commented on the record numbers: “We are pleased to see the continued growth in CME Group FX futures and FX Link as complementary sources of liquidity to the OTC market and as mechanisms to help automate the trading of products like FX swaps.”
Meanwhile, CME is reportedly planning to introduce spot Bitcoin trading for its clients.
The company already operates a cryptocurrency futures exchange, offering standard and micro futures contracts for Bitcoin and Ether.