Press

Eurex, the international derivatives market, traded and cleared 59,5 million contracts in May. Compared with May 2001, the world's leading derivatives exchange thus posted an increase in volume of about eleven percent. Eurex shows a total of 301 million contracts traded during the first five months of the year, which is over 30 million contracts or 11 percent higher than the number traded during the same period of last year. The result in options on Deutsche Bank was outstanding in May, setting a new record with over 1,5 million contracts traded.

The fixed-income segment was again the highest-turnover segment in May, with 34,5 million contracts traded to a seven percent increase in trading volume. With this result, the capital market products at Eurex were also the world's most successful exchange-traded derivatives family again in May: The highest-volume contract in this segment and at Eurex as a whole was the Euro Bund future with 14 million contracts traded, ahead of the Euro Bobl future with 9,4 million contracts traded and the Euro Schatz future with volume of 9 million contracts.

In equity-based derivatives, some 25 million contracts were traded in May, comprising 12 million contracts in the equity-index derivatives segment and 12.9 million contracts in the equity options segment. Compared with May 2001, this corresponds to a 42 percent increase in trading volume for the futures and options on indices, and remained at the same level in the equity options.

In the equity-index derivatives, the futures contract on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 ranked first with about 4 million contracts traded, representing 130 percent growth in turnover for this product, followed by the option on the DAX with 3.3 million contracts (three percent lower than the year before). The turnover in options on the Euro STOXX 50, with 2.3 million contracts traded, was about 105 percent higher than one year ago (the second best turnover in history).

In the equity options segment, the highest volume was posted in the option on Deutsche Telekom shares with over 2.1 million contracts traded and a 12 percent growth in volume against the May 2001 figure. The option on Nokia ranked second in May with turnover of 1.6 million contracts (26 percent higher than in May last year), ahead of the option on Deutsche Bank with 1.5 million contracts traded (22 percent than in May 2001). The turnover in Deutsche Bank options also set a new record (previous record: 1.3 million contracts in May 2001). Among the options in the Euro STOXX Component Index, the Dutch equity options showed especially strong growth in volume: ABN Amro with 29,000 contracts traded (519 percent) and KPN with 24,000 contracts traded (521 percent).

EUREX Trading Volumes since 1990
(in contracts traded)