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With the Bank of England raising rates to 0.5% last week, Intercontinental Exchange's (ICE -0.6%) SONIA Index futures and options hit a single-day volume record of 916,964 contracts on Feb. 3, the same day the U.K.'s central bank announced the rate hike.
ICE SONIA Index futures and options represent the benchmark contract to manage Sterling interest rate risk. The index futures and options' volume record exceeded the previous record set on Sept. 16, 2021 by 13%.
ICE Euribor futures and options, the benchmark contract for managing euro-denominated interest rate risk, saw a total of 3.86M contracts trade on Feb. 3, marking the highest trading day in 2022 so far. SARON futures, the contract for managing Swiss franc interest rate risk reached record volume of 29,278 lots on the same day.
In December, 2021, ICE (NYSE:ICE) transitioned all open interest in its LIBOR-based three-month Sterling futures and options and three-month euro Swiss franc futures into their risk free rate equivalent contracts — three-month SONIA Index futures and options and three-month SARON Index futures.
Previously (Jan. 3), Libor fades into the sunset after decades-long dominance