Throughout the month, the Market’s financial division surpassed its own Open Interest record, reaching an average of 3 million contracts per trading session. Likewise, fostered by US dollar futures trading, March registered a volume of U$S 4,800 million, up 77% from the same month last year.
ROFEX ended March with a new Open Interest historical record in its Financial Derivatives Division (DDF). This index amounted to 3,416,543 open contracts on last March 30 trading session, representing more than 3,000 million dollars in nominal value. In fact, the Open Interest daily average in such month remained at 3 million contracts, with a year-over-year increase of 172%.
As regards volume, 4,828,674 financial futures contracts were traded, up 77% from the same month last year and up 63% from February 2009. Likewise, March 16 trading session became the second daily trading record in this Market’s division, with more than 470,000 contracts traded in a day.
On the other hand, March represented a record month in US dollar option trading, with a total volume of 73,327 traded contracts.
Also, Rolling Forex began to be traded last Monday, a currency contract similar to the current US dollar future but without expiration. In March last two trading sessions, 8,190 contracts were traded.
The Open Interest measures the number of contracts that remain open, which is generally determined at the end of each trading session. Both volume and Open Interest are indicators of the intensity of a market’s movement or the pressure on price change.