The Intercontinental Exchange, which runs the New York Stock Exchange and other indexes, reported strong first half volumes and open interest (OI) across soft commodities.
Specifically, volumes across ICE’s soft commodity portfolio — which includes ICE’s benchmark sugar, cocoa, coffee, cotton, canola and frozen concentrated orange juice markets — are up 22 percent year-over-year. Sugar volumes are up 30 percent while coffee volumes are up 10 percent. Also, cocoa is up 17 percent and cotton volumes are up 10 percent. The increases are mainly related to changing weather patterns and its impact on commodity supplies.
Also, ICE’s soft commodity options markets are performing particularly strong with OI across the portfolio up 22 percent at 1.9 million. Sugar Options OI is up 23 percent and Cocoa Options OI is up 62 percent at 669,000 contracts.
Further, a record number of Cocoa futures and options traded in the first half of 2023. Cocoa hit successive volume and OI records through the period to reach a record high of 1.4 million contracts on June 29. Cocoa OI is up 36 percent across futures and options while participation in ICE’s New York and London Cocoa contracts is at its highest since 2018.
“Commodity derivative markets have facilitated price risk management for producers and consumers for over 100 years,” said David Farrell, chief operating officer at ICE Futures U.S. “As new weather patterns emerge and fundamentals change, participants utilize ICE’s deeply liquid markets to manage price exposure for these commodities which are so central to daily life.”
Also, a record 4.4 million Canola futures and options traded in the first half of 2023, surpassing the record previously set in 2016.
Overall, open interest across ICE’s commodity markets is up 12 percent year over year at 52.6 million contracts with average daily volume up 7 percent at 3.9 million contracts.