Short-term bets push interest rate option volumes higher

Open interest in short-dated contracts surges 23% from December to March

Investors piled into short-dated interest rate options in the first three months of this year.

Open interest in short-term interest rate options – with maturities of one year or less – surged $12.3 trillion, or 23%, to $67 trillion notional quarter-on-quarter and 12% year-on-year.

Daily average turnover hit $2.1 trillion in March, up from $1.6 trillion in December, and the highest figure since February 2018.

In contrast, short-term interest rate futures open interest fell 4% quarter-on