Press

The international derivatives market Eurex, closed the first quarter of this year with record volumes. In the first three months, 312 million contracts were traded on Eurex, 8 percent more than in the first quarter of 2004 (Jan-March 2004: 290 million contracts), which was, at the time, also the strongest quarter to date. Moreover, with 116.5 million contracts, March was the second strongest month in the history of Eurex, second only to the record month of March 2004 (117.2 million contracts). An average of around 5.5 million contracts were traded and settled each day in March. With volume of almost 9 million contracts on March 16, the market surpassed the previous record of 8.3 million contracts set on March 5, 2004.

Fixed Income Derivatives was once again the strongest segment in March, trading a record 67.7 million contracts. Trading volume in the Euro-Bund Future achieved the third consecutive monthly record with 30.7 million contracts, and was up by 26 percent year-on-year (March 2004: 24.3 million contracts). Transaction volumes in the Euro-Schatz Futures climbed further, by 3 percent to 13.8 million contracts year on year. Compared to February 2005, volume rose by 21 percent. Trading in the Euro-Bobl Future increased 28 percent to 16.7 million contracts compared to last month. Open Interest, which is the number of open positions, reached a new record level in March with almost 1 million contracts in the Euro-Bobl Future.

Equity-based derivatives also recorded robust growth in March, with a transaction volume of around 48.8 million contracts. Of these, 29.5 million contracts were for equity index derivatives and 19.3 million contracts were for equity options. Eurex recorded particularly strong results in European equity options trading: trading in Italian equity options increased almost 600 percent year on year, trading in Dutch and French equity options saw an increase of almost 40 percent.

Around EUR 11 billion (single counting) was traded in March on the electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which complements Eurex’s Fixed Income range. This represents an increase of about 11 percent year on year.