Weve seen increased interest in the commodity currencies lately, namely the Austr alian dollar (AUD/USD) and

the Canadian dollar (CAD/USD), with a more than 200 p ercent increase in large open interest holders for AUD/USD (most recently 107) a nd more than 120 percent increase in CAD/USD (most recently 96) since 2008.Along side this, our New Zealand dollar (NZD/USD) future has seen a staggering 138 per cent increase in total volume year-over-year up to November 2012. Despite Bank for International Settlements numbers pointing to negligible global gains in ove r-the-counter NZD trading volumes, CME Group has outperformed considerably. NZD/ USD FX futures trading has grown from below 1 percent of our monthly volumes a y ear ago to over 2.2 percent in November. The question is why.New Zealands GDP, w ith exports making up 30 percent (agricultural mainly), has pulled the NZD into the basket of currencies that track the global commodity markets and daily riskon/risk-off sentiments. In the past few years, NZD has been highly correlated to this basket, and to the AUD/USD ( Our 2nd largest traded FX future). NZD genera lly has benefited from investment from its higher interest rates than its global partners, e.g. U.S. dollar, euro and Japanese yen. This Carry trade, albeit at m uch reduced levels, still represents opportunities for investment into the NZD. As a result we have seen a 130 percent increase in NZD/USD large open interest h olders from 2008 (most recently 53). Last weeks announcement from New Zealands cen tral bank that rates will be held steady may sustain this level of interest.Ther es also a plethora of contributing macro and micro factors have driven NZD for so me of the same reasons other currencies have become favored with buy-side partic ipants: the ability of our FX markets to offer a central counterparty to all tra des, a regulated trading environment, transparency at all levels of trading, cro ss margin capabilities and substantially improved liquidity.