Eurex says it has overtaken Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) as the leading market for equity options. Eurex CEO Rudolf Ferscha used the start of International Derivatives Week in London to stake his claim, and to launch 14 new options on Dutch shares.
Ferscha says that -measured by the underlying value of traded contracts -Eurex has taken pole position from CBOE. Eurex traded 64 million contracts with an underlying value of 366 billion euro between January and April 2002.
The options on fourteen leading Dutch equity options contracts will be introduced on 1 July, taking the total on Eurex to 23 Dutch. The basis trades for the new Dutch options are also soon to be included in the Xetra European Stars segment. Deutsche Brse has been offering participants liquid trading in the seven Dutch Euro-STOXX since November 2001.
The maximum terms for both existing options and the new Dutch options are to be extended to 60 months. In addition, all the Dutch options will be supported by permanent market making, with the most active participants enjoying lower fees. “To facilitate hedging for those who trade in these options, all the Dutch options tradable on Eurex will be subject to the smallest pricing unit of one euro cent,” says Eurex.
Some 70 million equity option contracts have been traded on Eurex so far in 2002.