Press

Eurex, the international derivatives market, traded and cleared about 63 million contracts in March. Thus, compared with March 2001, volume on the world's leading derivatives exchange grew by about 10 percent. For the first quarter of trading this year, Eurex shows a total of more than 185 million contracts traded, an increase of about 22 million contracts, or 13 percent more than the number traded during the same period of last year. The March highlight was the record monthly turnover in the option on Nokia of some 2 million contracts traded (a 97 percent increase from March 2001).

The fixed-income segment was the highest-volume segment again in March, with 36 million contracts traded, 12 percent higher than last year's March volume. The capital market products at Eurex were also the world's most successful exchange-traded derivatives family again in March: The highest-volume contract in this segment and at Eurex as a whole was the Euro Bund future, with 15.9 million contracts traded (a 16.3 percent increase), ahead of the Euro Bobl future with 9.3 million contracts traded (8.4 percent increase) and the Euro Schatz future, with volume of 8.8 million contracts (12.9 percent increase).

In equity-based derivatives, 26.4 million contracts were traded in March, comprising 14.7 million contracts in the equity-index derivatives segment and 11.7 million contracts in the equity options segment. This corresponds to growth of 17 percent over March 2001 in the futures and options on indices, while the equity options were about even with the previous year's March volume. In the equity index derivatives, the futures contract on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 achieved its second-best result on a monthly basis with some 5.6 million contracts traded, 66 percent higher than the volume traded in March 2001, and ahead of the option on the DAX, in which 3.8 million contracts changed hands. The option on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50, with 1.7 million contracts traded, was about 30 percent higher than the volume posted in March last year. In futures on the Nemax 50, volume for the month was 45 percent higher than in March 2001, rising to some 735,000 contracts traded, also the second-highest monthly total in this product to date.

EUREX Trading Volumes since 1990
(in contracts traded)