Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has reported a strong month of trading while Intercontinental Exchange reflected the slowdown in the US from a frenetic second quarter.
The main Hong Kong futures and options market reported on Thursday average daily volume up 21.2% last month to a total of 1.59 million contracts.
The Asian exchange’s futures book was up 5.25% on August last year to a daily average of 627,000 lots while HKEX’s options market reported daily volumes up 34.5% to 962,000 contracts.
The stand-out performer in futures was the HKEX Hang Seng Tech index future which saw average daily volumes rise 44.7% to 137,500 lots while the group’s stock options segment reported volume up 41.8% to a daily average of 855,000 contracts.
By contrast, Intercontinental Exchange, which operates commodities, interest rates and equity derivatives markets mostly in the US and Europe, reported trading activity down 2% last month to a daily average of 7.5 million lots.
The small decline reflected a slowdown in commodities trading and a slight increase in the group’s Financials sector.
ICE’s commodities futures and options traded a daily average of 4.2 million lots last month, down 7% on last year. This included an 8% fall in energy activity to 3.84 million lots, comprising a 19% decline in Brent crude oil derivatives and an 8% increase in ICE natural gas derivatives trading.
The US group’s Financials market, made up of interest rates, equity and foreign exchange derivatives, reported average daily volumes up 2.6%, driven largely by the group’s short-term interest rate derivatives which saw volumes rise 9.5% last month to a daily average of 2.6 million lots.
Frankfurt’s Eurex reported on Wednesday total derivatives volumes fell 18% on last August to 126.3 million lots.
Eurex’s interest rate derivatives held up, down 1% to 67.2 million lots, but the German group’s index derivatives dropped 36% to 41.5 million contracts and single stock derivatives were down 18% to 17.1 million lots.
