Total exchange volume was 38.9% higher than last month. The exchange only needs to trade 48,734 contracts to set a new annual volume record. The current record set in 2006 is 5,287,730 contracts. November volume was the third largest for any given month at the exchange, behind only July and August of this year.
The hard red winter (HRW) wheat futures contract set a new trading volume record for the month of November as well with 602,081 contracts, breaking the previous record of 441,194 set in 2005 by 36.5%. Volume posted gains of 38.9% compared to last month. A new HRW wheat futures annual volume record was set on Nov. 12, breaking the previous record of 4,763,168 set in 2006. That record has now been exceeded by 7.3%. November HRW volume was the third largest for any given month at the exchange, behind only July and August of this year.
Wheat options trading volume was robust in November, posting a 168.4% gain compared to November 2009 and 15% compared to last month.
Open interest in the HRW wheat futures set several new open interest records during the month of November, topping out at 250,506 contracts on Nov. 11. Before this month's run-up, the previous record was 236,543 contracts set on Oct. 28.
At month's end, wheat futures open interest was 55.9% higher than at the end of November 2009. Wheat options open interest gained 97.2% compared to the end of November 2009. Open interest measures the number of open trading positions in a market. Each KCBT wheat futures contract represents 5,000 bushels of wheat.
Year-to-date volume for the HRW wheat futures contract is running 48% ahead of last year at this time. Exchange volume is running 47.2% ahead of last year at this time.
