Press

Eurex, the international derivatives market, got off to a good start in 2003 with 85 million contracts traded and cleared in January, its second-highest monthly volume to date. Compared with January 2002, trading on the world's leading derivatives exchange grew more than 30 percent, with an average of some 3.9 million contracts traded per day. The Eurex participants, who are linked with Eurex worldwide from 648 locations, boosted the trading and clearing performance in all segments on the world's leading derivatives exchange in January.

The highest-volume segment in January, as in previous months, was the capital market products with some 48 million contracts traded, accounting for over half the Eurex turnover. The Euro-Bund future was again the Number One product with 22 million contracts traded, a 25 percent increase over the January 2002 volume, and setting a new record. In the Euro-Bobl future, 12.2 million contracts were traded, representing an increase of 27 percent compared to January 2002.

In January, Eurex Bonds, the electronic trading platform which rounds out the Eurex offerings in the Fixed Income segment, showed a 42 percent increase in trading activity by its market participants compared with January 2002 and an increase of 13 percent compared with December 2002. Eurex Bonds posted turnover of 12.8 billion euros (single counting) in January, as compared with December and January 2002 levels of 11.3 billion and 9.0 billion euros in turnover, respectively.

Equity-based derivatives achieved volumes of about 37 million contracts traded in January, 21.6 million contracts in the equity index derivatives segment and 15.2 million contracts in the equity options segment. The trading volume in equity index derivatives rose 78 percent over the previous year's volume for the month, while the volume traded in equity options was 11 percent higher.

The month's leading contract in equity index derivatives again in January was the futures contract on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index with 8.8 million contracts traded, a 120 percent increase in volume over the number traded in January last year. The option on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index was even 160 percent higher, with 5.7 million contracts traded, a new turnover record in this product.

In the equity options segment, the Dutch and French equity options especially showed the biggest gains in volume: The world's leading equity options exchange posted a total volume of 517,000 contracts traded in the Dutch equity options, quadrupling the trading volume posted in January 2002. Eurex thus achieved a market share of some 9 percent in the Dutch segment, with peaks of as much as some 20 percent of this market.

EUREX Trading Volumes since 1998
(in contracts traded)