Press

Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, reported today that trading volumes in April increased by 24 percent year-on-year to 151 million contracts (April 2006: 122 million contracts). Average daily trading volume at Eurex was roughly 8 million contracts. Total trading volumes in 2007 reached 618 million contracts in the first 4 months (plus 24 percent year-on-year).

In April, equity derivatives set a new record with a total of 53 million contracts, an increase of approximately 50 percent year-on-year (April 2006: 35.6 million contracts). Of the equity derivatives, particularly strong growth was seen in single stock futures (SSFs). In April, trading volumes doubled to a total of 11 million contracts compared with the previous month. In the segment equity options, the Allianz option set a new monthly record with 6.7 million contracts.

Equity index derivatives were up by 77 percent year-on-year, totaling 49 million contracts. Of these, the largest single product are the futures and options on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 with 18.5 million futures and 17.6 million options traded.

Approximately 49 million contracts were traded in the fixed-income derivatives segment (April 2006: 59 million contracts). The Euro-Bund future remained the most successful product at Eurex with 23 million contracts.

Approximately €9.2 billion (single counting) was traded in April on the electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds (April 2006: €10 billion), which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range.