OneChicago – the electronic trading joint venture between the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) – says that 56,858 security futures contracts traded at the Exchange in February, a 10% increase over February 2004 volume.
Open interest stood at 178,576 contracts as of February 28. Each single stock futures contract is equivalent to 100 shares of the underlying stock or exchange-traded fund.
The top five single stock futures contracts by volume in February were: Nextel Communications Inc. (NXTL1C) eBay Inc. (EBAY1C) Johnson & Johnson (JNJ1C) Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC1C) Amgen Inc. (AMGN1C) In February the Exchange listed 119 single stock futures, including futures on the DIAMONDS Trust. In addition, 17 new single stock futures became available for trading today for a total of 136 futures on single stocks.