cme group

CME Group Micro Futures and Options Surpass 1 Billion Contracts Traded

CME Group, one of the largest derivatives marketplaces in the world, has announced that the micro futures and options at the exchange have crossed a total of 1 billion contracts traded since its launch in 2009.

In 2009, it was launched at a small scale with only micro FX contracts but ever since that time, it has launched over 20 products in this product range and these are mainly directed towards the retail traders who would not be able to afford the normal futures and options contracts due to their sheer size. It should also be noted that since the beginning of this year alone, over 362 million contracts have been traded in this product range and this shows the enormous amount of retail interested in trading of futures and options at CME.

“Retail participation across CME Group continued to grow during the first half of the year, and our innovative, Micro-sized products help ensure that both individual and institutional clients can even more easily access our markets going forward,” said Julie Winkler, CME Group Chief Commercial Officer. “We continue to work closely with the broker community to help educate market users of all sizes on the many benefits of Micro futures trading, including deep liquidity in global benchmark products across nearly every investible asset class.”

The Micro E-mini Equity Index futures launched in 2019 has been the most successful product in this section with it accounting for over 87% of the contracts traded so far. In 2021, the Micro Bitcoin Futures have been launched due to huge interest in crypto trading the world over, from both institutional and retail clients as well. These micro futures have traded 1.5 million contracts since the launch of this product in May and have also contributed to the huge increase in retail participation in this product segment.

“NinjaTrader is focused on increasing accessibility to the futures markets, and the popularity of Micro futures demonstrates the growing demand from self-directed investors for product innovation,” said Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader Group, LLC. “These smaller, more flexible contracts have dramatically reduced the cost for new retail traders to experience the benefits of futures, and we look forward to partnering with CME Group on the continued expansion of their Micro futures contract suite.”

Other trading platforms like TradeStation and Ninja Trader have been actively supporting the micro futures instruments as and when each of them is introduced by the CME and they add these new products to the platform immediately as these products have been receiving a lot of attention and love from the retail traders on different platforms.