Continuing their neck-and-neck battle for trading exchange market supremacy, Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) both announced new trading volume records during January 2007. Nymex also noted that its electronic trading endeavor through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) Globex platform is now regularly outpacing Nymex open outcry floor-traded volumes.

Coming off of the January consummation of its merger with the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) (see NGI, Jan. 15), ICE recently reported record volume and commissions during January 2007 with figures that more than doubled the levels from January 2006. Average daily volume (ADV) for ICE Futures, ICE’s U.K. based regulated futures subsidiary, was a record 574,170 contracts, an increase of 153.6% over ADV in January 2006. Average daily commissions in ICE’s over-the-counter (OTC) business segment in January reached a new high of $918,288, a 136.7% increase over January 2006. Volume at NYBOT, which is now the U.S.-based futures subsidiary of ICE, totaled 3,590,589 contracts in January 2007, for an ADV of 178,168 contracts.

Total monthly volume at ICE Futures in January rose 165.7% to a record 12,631,746 contracts, compared to 4,754,400 contracts in January 2006. On Jan. 31, 2007, open interest for ICE Futures stood at a record 1,636,261 contracts, compared to 1,416,470 contracts on Dec. 31, 2006. ICE Brent crude futures and ICE WTI crude futures established new daily volume and open interest records during the month, and ICE Gas Oil futures set a new open interest high in January. ICE Futures averaged 49% market share in global crude futures as measured by volume of light sweet crude oil in the month of January.

Over at Nymex, the newly public company (see NGI, Nov. 20, 2006) said that “tremendous increases” in electronic volumes set records across all venues. Nymex electronic trading volume on CME Globex increased 538% over the January 2006 electronic volume on Nymex ACCESS. The electronic trading versus floor trading dynamic also shifted largely in favor of electronic from January 2006 to January 2007. While Nymex average daily floor volumes dropped from 557,442 to 395,568 contracts over that time frame, Nymex average daily electronic volumes increased from 97,942 contracts in January 2006 to 624,741 in January 2007.

For January 2007, Nymex’s average daily volume set an all-time monthly record of 1.65 million contracts per day, a 45% increase from 1.1 million contracts per day in the same period of 2006.

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