Press

Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, closed out the year 2000 with record volume of 454 million contracts traded, putting the world's leading derivatives market about 20 percent ahead of the previous year's total. The December turnover figures reflect the rise in trading volumes year on year: 35 million contracts were traded at Eurex during the last month of the year 2000, an increase of 28 percent over the number traded in December 1999 (27.4 million contracts).

The Bund future was the most heavily traded product in December with 10.5 million contracts traded, compared with 7.6 million contracts in December 1999 (an increase of 38 percent), ahead of the Bobl future, with 5.1 million contracts traded as opposed to 3.2 million in December 1999 (an increase of 57 percent) and the Schatz future, with 3.7 million contracts traded, as compared with 1.4 million in December last year (162 percent increase).

The strongest growth rates in comparison to December 1999 were achieved by the option on Nokia with 561,000 contracts traded (nearly 25 times the number traded during the same month of last year), ahead of the option on Schatz futures with its 220,000 contracts traded (increasing 505 percent), the Schatz future with 3.7 million contracts (a 162 percent increase) and the future on the Dow Jones Euro-STOXX 50 with 2 million contracts traded (an increase of 116 percent).

In the products on the Dow Jones Euro-STOXX 50, Eurex achieved growth of 82 percent with more than 2.6 million contracts traded, against 1.5 million in December 1999. With more than 2 million contracts traded, the future on the European benchmark index even set a new record (previous record: 1.7 million contracts in September 2000). On the whole, Eurex achieved turn-over of some 7.2 million contracts in the index derivatives in December, which corresponds to an increase of more than 10 percent over the previous year's December figure of 6.5 million contracts traded.

In the equity options, 6.4 million contracts were traded in December 2000, slightly above the number posted in December 1999. In 2000, a total of some 90 million contracts changed hands, compared with 65 million during the same period of last year (an increase of 38 percent). The equity options segment thus recorded the biggest jump in turnover for the year 2000, ahead of capital market products, which grew by 17 percent, and index products with 16 percent growth.

EUREX Trading Volumes since 1990
(in contracts traded)