During the coming months, CME Group said it will work closely with all market participants and regulators to ensure a smooth transition and an orderly wind down of business operations, including the provision of CME Group market alternatives for actively traded products on CME Europe.
“While Europe continues to be a critically important and expanding market for CME Group, with average volumes of more than 2.6 million contracts per day from European clients during 2016, our customers have shown that they prefer to access our global products, deep liquidity and greater capital efficiencies through our U.S. infrastructure,” said William Knottenbelt, CME group senior managing director, International. “Though we have made the business decision to close these London-based entities, we will continue to maintain a significant operation in London to execute our global growth strategy, including serving our European client base, developing innovative products and services, and helping customers effectively manage their risk across every major asset class.”
In January, the CME Group announced that its 2016 average daily volume (ADV) reached a record 15.6 million contracts, up 12% from 2015. Five of CME Group's top 10 daily volume days occurred within 2016, with three of those during the fourth quarter. Agricultural volume averaged 1.2 million contracts per day during the fourth quarter of 2016, down 1% from the same period in 2015. Highlights included an increase of 36% in hard red winter wheat futures and options ADV.
Through its exchanges, CME Group offers the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. CME Group provides electronic trading globally on its CME Globex platform. The company also offers clearing and settlement services across asset classes for exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives through its clearinghouses CME Clearing and CME Clearing Europe.
