Press

The U.S. regulatory agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has approved trading in additional Eurex products for the U.S. market effective immediately. The approval comprises the futures on the Dow Jones STOXX® Large 200 Index and Dow Jones STOXX® Small 200 Index as well as six Dow Jones STOXX® 600 sector indexes. These newly available futures enable U.S. customer to trade specific segments and sectors of the European stock universe represented by the DJ STOXX® 600 Index.

Eurex launched futures on the two DJ STOXX size indexes on 23 July 2007. These futures on the DJ STOXX Large 200 Index and DJ STOXX Small 200 Index supplement the futures available on the DJ STOXX® Mid 200 Index, which was approved by the CFTC in 2007.

The DJ STOXX 600 sector index futures cover the insurance, media, utilities, travel and leisure, personal and household goods, industrial goods and services sectors and complement the banking sector futures which are already available to U.S. customers.

U.S. participants are already able to trade Eurex’s benchmark products, including futures on the DJ EURO STOXX® 50 index and DAX®, as well as the Euro-Schatz, Euro-Bobl, Euro-Bund and Euro-Buxl® interest rate derivatives. The trading volume generated directly in the U.S. by CFTC-approved index products currently constitutes up to 23 percent of the total Eurex volume in those contracts.

Heike Eckert, Executive Vice President responsible for Eurex’s activities in the U.S., said, “The U.S. is one of Eurex’s most important markets. The approval of additional products gives our U.S. participants new trading and diversification opportunities.” She also stressed that new business and investment opportunities would arise from the mutual recognition framework currently under discussion at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). “We look forward to this market opening. Investors and traders will benefit from increased efficiency and transparency as well as lower costs of execution.”