Eurex Claims Another Record Year In 2002

Eurex, the international derivatives exchange controlled by Deutsche Borse, says it has already set a new world record in trading volume in 2002. Based on the preliminary figures, which include estimated volumes for the last five trading days of the

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Eurex, the international derivatives exchange controlled by Deutsche Borse, says it has already set a new world record in trading volume in 2002.

Based on the preliminary figures, which include estimated volumes for the last five trading days of the year, over 800 million contracts were traded and cleared in 2002, compared with 674 million contracts the year before. This represents an increase of 20 per cent, or another 130 million contracts.

Eurex points to its development of sector index products, Dutch equity options and the EXTF segment as the principal reasons for its success. Eurex turned over a total of 3.5 million futures and options on sector index products in 2002, achieving an average monthly increase in volume of about 20 percent.

In Dutch equity options, Eurex traded 550,000 contracts during the first six months of 2002. When it started, turnover in Dutch equity options to quadrupled to 2.2 million contracts traded, and settled at over 17,000 contracts during this period.

In the EXTF segment, the market participants at Eurex have traded 45,000 contracts in the five weeks of trading since the EXTF segment was launched on 18 November. In December, Eurex achieved a daily average of some 3,000 contracts traded in this segment.

The equity-based products at Eurex also grew substantially, rising by about 33 per cent to more than 350 million contracts, compared with the previous year’s figure (264 million contracts). In the equity-based derivatives segment, the highest growth rates were achieved in the index products, with volume increasing more than 55 per cent across the board.

The highest growth rates for the established products were posted here in futures and options on the DJ Euro-STOXX 50, with some 85 million and 40 million contracts traded, respectively, representing increases of 120 per cent and 100 per cent over the previous year’s volumes.

In the equity options segment, the option on Nokia topped the list with 20 million contracts traded, which is about 35 per cent higher than the year before.

In the fixed-income segment, the capital market products at Eurex were the most successful segment, with some 450 million contracts traded (previous year, 409 million contracts). The highest-turnover product was the Bund future, with about 195 million contracts traded (previous year, 178 million contracts, up 7 percent).

Eurex Bonds and Eurex Repo, the two trading platforms that complete the Eurex offerings in the fixed-income segment, showed growth of more than 300 per cent in the trading activity by their market participants over the year. In the meantime, Eurex Bonds is turning over 850 million euros in volume on a daily average, while Eurex Repo is showing some 10 billion euros in outstanding volume on a daily basis.

Eurex emphasises that all of the turnover figures for the year 2002 are tentative because the trading volumes for the last five trading days of the year have been estimated. The final statistics for the year 2002 will be available on 2 January 2.

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