Derivatives exchanges have been one of the big beneficiaries of recent volatility in world financial markets, with several of them boasting trading volume records.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange said today that for the first time in the exchange’s history, trading volume exceeded 10 million contracts, with 10.7 million contracts traded on September 1, a global record for a futures exchange. This exceeded the previous day’s record volume of 9.97 million contracts.

For the second consecutive day, volume on the CME Globex electronic trading platform also achieved a new high with 6.9 million contracts traded. This surpassed the previous one-day electronic trading record of 6.8 million contracts set on August 31.

The Montreal Exchange also reported a series of volume records were set in yesterday’s trading. Overall exchange volume reached 294,942 contracts, surpassing the previous record of 237,708 contracts reached on August 25. Volume records were also set on the Canadian three-month interest rate futures, and August daily activity averaged 121,948 contracts surpassing the March 2005 record of 115,978 contracts.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange announced that August trading volume at the CBOE was 41.3 million contracts, setting a new all-time trading record for total monthly volume, surpassing the previous record of 40.7 million contracts traded in April. This was also 53% higher than the volume traded in August 2004. Additionally, CBOE’s August volume in index options was up 56% over August 2004, and the 17.8 million contracts traded set a new all-time record for total monthly index option volume.