Futures Trading Volume Continues to Grow at a Fast Clip

The Futures Industry Association (FIA) has reported that in the first nine months of this year, a grand total of 7.28 billion futures and options contracts were traded on derivatives exchanges around the world. Remarkably, some of the fastest growing exchanges in the world were in the U.S., arguably the most mature market for futures and options. Looking again at that same nine-month period, January to September, FIA calculates that 2.57 billion contracts were traded on U.S. futures and options exchanges, up about 25% from the same period in 2004. Looking just at the month of September, the year-over-year growth rate at the U.S. exchanges was nearly 40%. What these numbers tell us is that more and more investors and traders are becoming interested in trading commodity and financial futures. Even the New York Stock Exchange has expressed a serious interest in the derivatives business, because it knows that futures trading is growing much faster than cash equities trading. Futures trading volume has been growing at 15% a year over the last 20 years, and the rate of growth has been accelerating since 2000. Wall Street used to think of the futures industry as a bunch of guys trading pork bellies and soybeans. But now there's an increasingly widespread recognition that in a modern economy, with a modern financial system, futures and options have a central role as instruments for price discovery, risk management, and of course speculation in pursuit of profits. Clearly, the future of online trading belongs to futures! Please know that all of us here at XPRESSTRADE appreciate your business and are grateful for the opportunity to be of service. If we can be of assistance in any way, don't hesitate to contact us, 24 hours per day during the trading week. We're here to help!