Foreign exchange futures types and market size

Since the establishment of the Chicago National Currency Market, the business has developed quite rapidly. On the first day of trading, there were only 210 contracts traded in Daocheng. By 1976, it had traded 200,000 contracts, and by 1988 it had soared to 25 million contracts per month. At first, it mainly operated foreign exchange futures contracts in 6 currencies, namely British pounds, Canadian dollars, German marks, Japanese yen, Swiss francs and Australian dollars. Later, it added futures trading of European dollars and European currency units, and also added options trading of foreign exchange futures. At present, the Chicago International Currency Market has developed into a very active and very successful comprehensive financial futures trading market.

On September 30, 1982, the British "London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) " was officially established in London, mainly dealing in British pound, Swiss franc, Deutsche Mark, Japanese yen, and US dollar futures. With the expansion of foreign exchange futures business around the world, China's Hong Kong, Australia's Delicate, New Zealand's Auckland, Canada's Toronto and Vancouver, Amsterdam, and Singapore Mexico have all begun to trade foreign exchange futures, but the trading volume is far behind Chicago's IMM and London's LIFFE. The following table lists the world's major foreign exchange futures exchanges and the types of foreign exchange futures they operate.

The world's major foreign exchange futures exchanges and the types of foreign exchange futures they operate

exchange name

Types of foreign exchange futures

Delicate Futures Exchange

Australian dollar

Chicago International Money Market

Euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, Japanese yen

Central American Commodity Exchange

Swiss Franc, Pound Sterling, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Japanese Yen

New York Cotton Exchange

Euro

Philadelphia Stock Exchange

Swiss Franc, Pound Sterling, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Japanese Yen, Australian Dollar

London International Financial Futures Exchange

Pound Sterling, Dollar, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc

London Stock Exchange

Pound Sterling, Dollar

Toronto Futures Exchange and Vancouver Stock Exchange

Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Euro, Pound Sterling

Singapore International Monetary Exchange

Euro, Japanese Yen, Eurodollar, British Pound

Auckland Futures Exchange

New Zealand dollar, US dollar

France International Futures Exchange

Euro

Tokyo International Financial Futures Exchange

Euroyen, Japanese Yen, Eurodollar

In general, the world's foreign exchange futures business is still mainly operated by the Chicago International Monetary Market and the London International Financial Futures Exchange. However, judging from the current volume of foreign exchange futures trading contracts, the latter cannot keep up with the former.

In the past 20 years, the scale of global foreign exchange futures has continued to grow. Although the annual turnover of foreign exchange futures worldwide fell from 3.20 trillion US dollars to 3 trillion US dollars from 1994 to 2002. But from 2002 to 2008, the growth rate of foreign exchange futures trading volume exceeded the growth rate of other types of futures. From 2002 to 2005, the annual growth rate of foreign exchange futures was 18.5%, 64.5% and 63.6% respectively, more than double the corresponding annual increase in interest rates and stock indices. From 2005 to 2008, it maintained growth for three consecutive years. In 2009, the global foreign exchange futures suffered the smallest decline due to the impact of the financial crisis, and its recovery rate exceeded 45% in 2010, which was higher than that of any other futures market.

There are many reasons for the rapid growth of foreign exchange futures in recent years. The increase in internationalization, the growth of international trade and international investment, and the popularization of transaction automation are the main reasons. In addition, the United States is not only the birthplace of the global on-exchange financial derivatives market and the vast majority of over the counter derivatives market, but also remains the main market for global on-exchange financial futures, especially foreign exchange futures. Although the development of European and Asia-Pacific financial futures markets is rapid, the foreign exchange futures market has not developed much.