Crude Futures Trading Sets New Volume Records

摘要

It's a classic case of the old chicken and egg conundrum. Trading volumes on the Nymex and ICE oil futures exchanges have been setting new records because price volatility is at its highest level in five years. Or is it the other way around? Either way, combined futures volumes for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude and North Sea Brent averaged just over 2 million contracts per day in February, equivalent to 21 times the volume of global oil demand.