"July is like a blind date with summer"

The author of this quote, Hal Borland, was fascinated by seasonality and how patterns reoccur in changes in nature. In markets, July is traditionally the calmest month, and activity is light as summer nights. But do not be fooled by the calm, the global news cycle cares not for the holidays of mankind. And so, even though the Euros and the holiday season gave ample opportunity to focus on the world outside of work, politics was the dominating force that interrupted the lull of July.

Elections in the UK and France kept market participants busy in gauging the various risks and opportunities, which we saw expressed in volumes and pricing over the first half of the month. Both French and Italian Government Bonds saw spreads blow out and retrace after the election. OAT futures volume in the first 10 calendar days of the month (261k lots) was almost 40% higher than the rest of the month (189k lots). Finally, calm settled in in the second half of the month, when the holiday season gained full steam. Overall, the European Government Bond futures segment traded around 2.6mn lots a day over the month, clearly below the ADV (Average Daily Volume) this year (3.4mn) but around 20% above last year's July.

While many took the chance to unwind, our teams were diligently advancing our STIR initiative into its next phase. I am immensely proud of the growing engagement in our STIR partnership program—a testament to our collective effort and commitment. Rome was not built in a day, and we are witnessing a shift in activity towards our markets. Large blocks in Euribor up to € 20bn in annualized notional and the first 15mn lots traded in €STR futures are milestones I’d like to congratulate the team on. Additionally, we have been working on adjusting the LP scheme for the STIR products to make our markets even more attractive, with changes going live in August.?

On another front, we have an exciting announcement in our credit suite, responding to client feedback. We are expanding our offering to cover US investment grade and high yield markets. The new contracts on Bloomberg indices (IG: LUACTRUU, HY: LHVLTRUU) will be tradeable from 23 September, marking the next step in our journey to make trading global credit as easy as trading equities. Feedback from this segment has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are truly grateful for the opportunity to offer such a comprehensive set of products to our European clients and the global marketplace. I am also pleased to announce that we have more great plans for the segment, so stay tuned for what’s next.