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Monday, May 4, 2009

CME Group volume falls 23% in April

Exchange operator CME Group Inc. said Monday trading volume declined 23 percent in April.

Average daily volume across all its trading platforms, which include commodities, futures and derivatives contracts, slipped to 9.2 million contracts per traded per day in April, compared with 11.9 million traded daily during the same month last year.

The sharpest decline in trading came among interest rate contracts. Interest rate product volume fell 45 percent in April to 3.3 million contracts traded per day. With interest rates remaining low amid the ongoing recession, trading of derivatives contracts tied to rates has sunk in recent months.

E-mini contracts were the only product to see an increase in trading in April. Average daily volume for e-minis rose 18 percent to 2.9 million contracts per day, from 2.5 million per day in April 2008.

E-minis are futures contracts that are benchmarked to popular broad-based stock indices, such as the Standard & Poor's 500 or the Russell 2000.

Shares of CME Group rose $11.75, or 5.2 percent, to close Monday at $234.34.

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