Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE) today announced that the global futures and options markets set a record open interest (OI) of more than 94 million contracts on April 24, 2024, an increase of 26% year-over-year (year-over-year), including record OI in goods of 66.3 million and the energy OI record of 62 million, with energy increasing by 30% (y/y).
“ICE has been focused on building a global commodity and energy trading platform for more than two decades, designed to serve the needs of an evolving trading client base,” said Trabue Bland, SVP, Futures Exchanges at ICE. “The record levels of liquidity really highlight the benefit our clients find in the contracts we provide, which allow for both flexibility and precision hedging in our benchmark derivatives.”
OI in ICE’s global oil markets grew 30% year-over-year, with average daily volume up 26% year-to-date. Brent options, the world’s most liquid crude oil options market, set a series of OI records in April 2024, surpassing the record last set in March 2020, including a record 3.5 million contracts on April 24, 2024 , up 51% year-on-year. The ICE Low Sulfur Oil contract is the global benchmark for refined products, and on April 25, 2024, Gasoil options hit a record OI of 191,400 contracts.
Meanwhile, global ICE gas futures and options markets hit a record OI of 41.3 million on April 24, 2024, up 34% year-on-year, with ICE Henry Hub futures hitting a record OI of 7 .8 million contracts and TTF natural gas futures a record OI 4.5 million, up nearly 100% year-on-year.
Across ICE’s global environmental portfolio, open interest is up 43% year-to-date. The price signals and liquidity provided by ICE’s energy and environmental markets are central to helping companies transition to alternative forms of energy by providing tools to allocate capital and manage the associated price risk.