Trading volume at Eurex increased substantially in August, with the world’s largest derivatives exchange exceeding the August 2003 volume by 8 percent, up to 75.7 million contracts. At 704.4 million contracts, turnover for the first eight months of the current year represents a year-on-year increase of around 3 percent.
The highest turnover in August was delivered by the fixed income derivatives segment, with 38.2 million contracts accounting for around half of the volume traded on Eurex. With 15.5 million contracts traded, the Euro Bund Future retained its position as the most successful product. The Euro Bobl Future accounted for 10.7 million contracts, while the traded volume of Euro Schatz Future contracts totalled 7.9 million.
37.5 million contracts were traded for equity-based derivatives in August, 21.5 million of which were equity index derivatives and 16 million equity options. The top contract among the equity index derivatives was the future on the DJ Euro Euro-STOXX 50 index with 9.3 million contracts; trading volume in this contract rose by around 45 percent year-on-year.
Trading in Dutch and French equity options remained strong. Some 763,000 contracts were traded in Dutch equity options in August. Traded volume in this segment for the first eight months of the current year was up by around 26 percent y-o-y to 5.5 million contracts. Roughly 232,000 contracts were traded in French equity options in August, with turnover for the first eight months almost doubling to 1.9 million contracts (January-August 2003: 896,000 contracts). The future on the Dow Jones Italy Titans 30 index, traded on Eurex since July 19, recorded traded volume of around 13,500 contracts during its first full month of trading.
The electronic trading platform, Eurex Bonds, saw a volume of around 9.32 billion euros (US$ 11.37 billion) (single counting) in August. Currently 31 participants are connected to Eurex Bonds.