CME news: April 2026 ADV reaches 25.9 million contracts

CME Group ADV, April 2026	Contracts
Total	25.9 million
Interest rate	11.4 million
Equity index	7.8 million
Energy	2.9 million
Agricultural	2.0 million
Metals	926,000
Foreign exchange	873,000
Cryptocurrency	192,000 ($14.8B notional)

The main CME news for April 2026, released May 4, was average daily volume of 25.9 million contracts across the exchange operator’s futures and options markets. Interest rate products remained the largest asset class at 11.4 million contracts a day, followed by equity index products at 7.8 million.

Energy averaged 2.9 million contracts a day. Within that group, smaller-sized contracts stood out: Micro WTI Crude Oil futures volume was up 421% from April 2025, and WTI Crude Oil weekly options rose 44%. Micro contracts are a fraction of the standard contract size and are often used by smaller traders and by firms that want finer control over hedge sizes, so a jump of that scale points to broader participation in oil rather than simply heavier trading by large accounts.

Metals averaged 926,000 contracts. Micro Gold futures rose 50% and Micro Silver futures rose 264% year over year, extending the same theme of growth in reduced-size products. In agriculture, which averaged 2 million contracts a day, KC HRW Wheat futures set a record ADV of 107,000 contracts and Soybean Oil futures rose 9%.

Foreign exchange averaged 873,000 contracts, and Japanese Yen futures set a single-day record of 632,000 contracts on April 30. FX Link volume rose 33%. Cryptocurrency products averaged 192,000 contracts, or $14.8 billion in notional value, with overall crypto ADV up 5% and Ether futures up 33%. CME’s BrokerTec platform, which handles cash Treasury and repo trading, reported average daily notional value up 4% to $1.041 trillion. U.S. repo rose 3% to $389 billion, and European repo increased 15% to €369 billion.

Taken together, the April release shows a business where the largest asset classes, rates and equity index, supply the bulk of volume, while much of the year-over-year growth story is being written in reduced-size contracts across energy and metals. That split matters for the exchange because smaller contracts tend to draw a different and broader customer base than the standard benchmarks.

What to watch: whether growth in micro energy and metals contracts continues in May and June, and whether the April records in wheat and yen futures prove to be one-off spikes tied to specific events or the start of more sustained activity. The release reports volume only; it does not indicate the direction of prices or positions.