Eurex set new monthly volume record during January, as the exchange recorded strong interest in its equity index futures following Société Générale trading losses on the asset class.

Eurex recorded more than 207m contracts in January, up 57% year on year, exceeding the volumes witnessed during January 2007, when 132m.

Approximately 9.4 million contracts per day were traded in January.

A new monthly record was set in the equity index segment in January with a total of 98m contracts traded. The previous record was set during March 2007 when a total of 87m contracts.

In January 2007, the segment reached 44.5 million contracts.

The new peak was mainly achieved through new records of futures and options on the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 index. The segment equity derivatives recorded 39.5m contracts compared with 28m contracts in January 2007. Volumes of single stock futures nearly doubled year-on-year, totalling 6.6m contracts.

While the exchange has refused to confirm or deny suggestions that the exchange was where Jerome Kerveil undertook his “rogue trading”, but FO Week understand that he undertook 200m trades on Euro Stoxx 50.

International Securities Exchange (ISE), a subsidiary of Eurex since December 2007, also set a new monthly record in January with a total of 102m contracts, an increase of 82 percent year-on-year. This equals an average daily volume of 4.8 million contracts.