Press

In August, Eurex, the world’s largest derivatives exchange saw turnover increase by around 19 percent to 90 million contracts against the same period last year (August 2004: 75.7 million contracts). At 821 million contracts, the turnover volume achieved in the first eight months of this year has eclipsed the same period last year by around 17 percent (January – August 2004: 704 million contracts).

With 40.7 million contracts traded in August, the fixed-income derivatives segment put in the highest turnover on Eurex. The most successful product was, once again, the Euro-Bund Future, with 19 million contracts. The Euro-Bobl and Euro-Schatz Futures contributed 10 million and 8 million contracts respectively.

49.4 million contracts were traded in equity-based derivatives in August, of which 28.3 million were in the equity index derivatives segment and 21.1 million in the equity options segment. The top contract among the equity index derivatives was the future on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index with 10.6 million contracts, a rise of around 15 percent on the previous year. Options on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index produced a record trading volume of 8.7 million contracts.

Approximately €13.8 billion (single counting) was traded in August on the electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s range in the Fixed Income product range, a rise of 47 percent year-on-year(August 2004: €9.4 billion). Around €452 million was traded in the “Agencies” segment of Eurex Bonds in August, up 90 percent on August 2004 (€238 million).