Some Trade Data on Public Exchanges

Here are some of the trade-volume data for August for a few of the leading publicly traded exchanges:

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange(CME Quote - Cramer on CME - Stock Picks) reported a 35% year-over-year increase for the August period but a slight decline from July's numbers. Of note was that option volume surged some 62% year over year, and electronic trading increased 34% and now accounts for some 80% of all volume.

At the International Securities Exchange(ISE Quote - Cramer on ISE - Stock Picks), the all-electronic option exchange, year-over-year volume for August rose 32%, which was pretty much in line with the overall option industry. Though, as expected, numbers fell about 4% from July and were down some 6% from a record-setting June, which included a quarterly expiration period.

The Chicago Board of Trade(BOT Quote - Cramer on BOT - Stock Picks) showed just a 23% year-over-year increase. But one bright spot was its newly launched electronic platform for gold futures, which has been giving the New York Comex a run of competition.

For comparison, equity volume from the major stock exchanges is on pace to show a 9% increase over the year-ago period and approximately11% growth for the year to date.

I'm still trying to get numbers for leading energy exchanges, the Nymex and Intercontinental Exchange(ICE Quote - Cramer on ICE - Stock Picks). In the Option Alert model portfolio, I took a small bearish position in the latter yesterday, but so far emails and phone calls have yielded little information. I expect the numbers for both to show a 30%-40% year-over-year increase, but believe that will prove to be a high-water mark for months to come.