August Equity Index Product Review

Data through August 31, 2022

• Equity Index futures and options volume averaged 6.5 million contracts per day in August 2022 (+51% vs. Aug-21)
• Equity Index open interest averaged 10.0 million contracts per day for the month of August 2022 (+12% vs. Aug-21)

Bitcoin futures and options: Futures ADV in August was 9.7K and open interest averaged 13.3K. LOIH averaged 95 for the month indicating continued institutional interest. Nearly 76K Bitcoin options have traded since their launch in early 2020 for a notional value of nearly $9.7B. August average OI was 3.8K, an average daily value of nearly $411M.

Micro Bitcoin futures: Launched in May-21, Micro Bitcoin futures have traded nearly 6.5M contracts to date. The futures are 1/10 of a bitcoin and settled to the CF Bitcoin Reference Rate. 2022 ADV was 8.9K and OI averaged 21.1K.

Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether options: CME Group introduced options on Micro Bitcoin futures and options on Micro Ether futures starting March 28. The new options are right-sized at 1/10th of their respective tokens. Over 274K contracts have traded since launch across the various expiries with trades submitted from EMEA, APAC, and North America.

Learn more:

• Landing page
• Fact card
• FAQ

Ether futures: CME Group launched Ether futures on February 8, 2021. The contract is cash-settled and based on the regulated CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate. Over 1.9M CME Ether futures contracts have traded since launch (equivalent to 95.9M Ether). August ADV was 6.2K and open interest averaged 4K.

Micro Ether futures: Launched in December-21, over 3.6M contracts have traded to date. ADV in August was 17.5K and OI averaged a record 51.3K (+9% vs. Jul-22).  Sized at 1/10 of one ether, the contract provides an efficient, cost-effective way to manage exposure to one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Enjoy the same features of the larger Ether futures (ETH) at a fraction of the size, settled to the regulated CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate.

Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures: CME Group launched Bitcoin Euro futures and Ether Euro futures on August 29. The new contracts are designed to match that of their U.S.-denominated counterparts at five bitcoin or 50 ether per contract. The contracts will settle to the respective CME CF Bitcoin-Euro Reference Rate (BTCEUR_RR) and CME CF Ether-Euro Reference Rate (ETHEUR_RR).

Learn more:

• Landing page
• Bitcoin Euro
• Ether Euro
• Cryptocurrency futures FAQ
• Fact card

Micro E-mini futures: Over 1.6B Micro E-mini Equity Index futures contracts have traded since launch. August ADV was 2.6M across the four indices. Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures leading share was an ADV of 1.3M in August, followed by Micro E-mini S&P 500 futures at 1.13M.

Learn more:

• Landing page

Micro E-mini options: CME Group launched Micro E-mini options on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indices in August 2020. Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 options continue to gain ground against their Micro E-mini S&P 500 option counterpart in terms of volume contribution. Since launch a combined 4.8M contracts have traded with an August ADV of 10.9K.

Learn more:

• Landing page
• FAQ

E-mini Sector Index futures: Launched August 8, now trade six new Sector Index futures:

• E-mini S&P Regional Banks Select Industry
• E-mini S&P Insurance Select Industry
• E-mini S&P Biotechnology Select Industry
• E-mini S&P Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Select Industry
• E-mini S&P Retail Select Industry
• E-mini PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index

Over 11K contracts have traded since launch. The new futures will be additive to the Sector Index suite available at CME Group offering low-cost index access, capital efficiency, short sector exposure, and much more.

Learn more:

• Landing page
• FAQ
• SER

Equity Sector Index futures August ADV was 9.3K and OI averaged 207.9K.

E-mini S&P 500 Tuesday and Thursday options: CME Group launched E-mini S&P 500 Tuesday and Thursday options April 25. The new options offer more opportunities to manage short-term equity exposure with more choices to trade throughout the week. The contracts complement the existing suite of Quarterly, End-of-Month, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Weekly options. These options settle into liquid E-mini S&P 500 futures, which have averaged nearly 2M contracts daily. August ADV was 156K between both contracts with over 12.2M contracts traded since launch.

Learn more here.

S&P 500 Dividend futures: Equity Index Dividend futures provide an efficient tool to hedge or express a view on the U.S. dividend market, regardless of the price movement of the benchmark indices. Quarterly and annual contracts are available on the S&P 500 Index. August ADV was 1.5K and open interest averaged 188K. Annual contracts are available on the Nasdaq-100 and Russell 2000 Indices as of April 11.

Nasdaq-100 and Russell 2000 Dividend futures:

• Landing page
• FAQ
• SER

E-mini S&P 500 options blocks: Participation in ES options blocks continues to grow, allowing market participants to execute large trades with greater efficiency. Over 18.1M ES options blocks have traded with August ADV at 79.8K contracts.

E-mini S&P 500 ESG futures: The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment theme continues to gain attention and implementation as the need for capitally efficient ESG solutions has grown. The S&P 500 ESG futures contracts allows market participants to gain price exposure to an index that closely tracks the performance of the S&P 500, while adhering to ESG principles. CME E-mini S&P 500 ESG futures continue to experience significant growth, with August ADV at 649 and open interest averaging 13.7K.

E-mini S&P Europe 350 ESG futures: Launched May-21, the new E-mini S&P Europe 350 ESG futures are cash-settled to the S&P Europe 350 ESG index. The index is Pan-European, covering developed markets across over 15 different countries. The four largest individual country weights as of April 8, 2021, are UK 23.58%, France 18.08%, Switzerland 17.16%, and Germany 14.90%. The index is based on the robust ESG index methodology, same as the one applied to S&P 500 ESG index, and is right-sized in terms of number of constituents at around 230. Since launch, nearly 3.6K futures have traded.

Please visit the following for further detail:

• Landing page
• FAQ
• Fact card