NYSE Liffe Commodity Volumes Jumped to Record in 2010
NYSE Liffe commodity-derivatives trading rose to a record in 2010 as investors bought and sold more than twice as many Paris milling-wheat futures and the most coffee, rapeseed and corn futures ever.
Trading of commodity derivatives jumped 37 percent to 16.7 million contracts, surpassing the previous record from 2008 of 13.2 million lots, New York-based NYSE Euronext said in an e- mailed statement today. NYSE Liffe is the global derivatives arm of NYSE Euronext, the world’s biggest stock exchange.
“Our strongest-performing contract was milling wheat,” Ian Dudden, director for commodity derivatives, said in the statement. Volumes rose on “price volatility caused by widespread drought in Russia and Eastern Europe last summer,” he said.
Milling-wheat futures jumped 92 percent in the French capital last year as drought in Russia and flooding in Canada destroyed crops and after excessive rain in Germany degraded part of the wheat there to feed grade. The commodity is little changed this year, with March-delivery milling wheat trading at 252.50 euros ($335.19) a metric ton at 12:32 p.m. Paris time.
Trading of milling-wheat futures surged to 4.37 million contracts from 1.93 million in 2009, NYSE Euronext said. The volume of London-traded feed-wheat futures rose 12 percent to 147,684 contracts.
The number of robusta coffee futures bought and sold advanced 10 percent to 2.79 million contracts in London. Volumes jumped 48 percent to 1.2 million lots for rapeseed futures traded in Paris and advanced 61 percent to 240,028 futures contracts for corn.
“Growth has been powered by investors who continue to increase their activity in commodities as an alternative to more traditional investments,” Dudden said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net.
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