CME Unveils September Volumes

On Oct. 2, CME Group Inc. (CME - Analyst Report) announced that Sept. 2009 volume averaged 10.5 million contracts per day, assuming combined CME Group and NYMEX volumes. That's down 32% from Sept. 2008, but up 3% compared to Aug. 2009.

Total monthly volume was 222 million contracts, 82% of which were traded electronically. Total electronic volume averaged 8.6 million contracts per day, down 32% from the prior year but up 5% from Aug. 2009.

Average daily volume cleared on CME ClearPort was 489,000 contracts for the month, up 5% compared with Sept. 2008. This continued to highlight the market participants' increased interest in the safety and soundness of CME's regulated, transparent, and centrally cleared markets.

Year-to-date volume averaged 10.3 million contracts per day. Interest rates volume decreased 38% from the prior year, whereas FX volume experienced its highest monthly level to date in 2009, averaging 756,000 contracts per day, with notional value of approximately $98 billion, an annual decrease of 7%. Commodities and alternative investments volume experienced an annual decrease of 13%.

CME group is the largest futures exchange in the world, offering the widest range of benchmark products covering all major asset classes, specifically futures products and options on futures. The broad product groups are futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, commodities, energy & metals, and also alternative investment products such as weather and real estate.

Though we remain optimistic about the continued growth prospects, especially with good progress on the integration of the recent acquisitions and the global expansion initiatives, relative valuation looks stretched and volumes may continue to be near current levels until the underlying markets stabilize.

Therefore, we are maintaining our Hold recommendation on the shares.

Read the full analyst report on CME