Press

Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, gained an 22 percent increase in turnover volume compared year-on-year to 185 million contracts (April 2007: 151 million contracts). The daily average turnover stood at 8.4 million contracts (April 2007: 8 million contracts). Open interest saw a rise of 13 percent to 141 million contracts per the end of March 2008.

The equity derivatives was the segment with the highest turnover and with 67.6 million contracts set a new monthly record. The former record was achieved in April 2007 with 53 million contracts – a rise of 28 percent. Single Stock Futures (SSFs) poked out of equity derivatives with a 192 percent rise to 32 million contracts compared to April 2007. In Münchener Rück SSFs alone 12.4 million contracts were traded.

Equity index derivatives rose by 33 percent year-on-year und totaled in 65 million contracts. Futures and options on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 had the highest volume turning over 24.4 million future contracts (+32 percent compared to April 2007) and 26.9 million option contracts (+53 percent compared to April 2007).

Around 52 million contracts were traded in the fixed income derivatives segment (April 2007: 49 million). Approximately 21.4 million contracts were traded in the Euro-Bund-Future. Trading volume in the Euro-Schatz Future reached 13.3 million contracts – a rise of 34 percent (April 2007: 10 million).

The International Securities Exchange (ISE), which belongs to Eurex since the end of December 2007, reached a daily average volume of 4 million contracts (April 2007: 2.7 million). In total volume increased by 62 percent to 89 million options (April 2007: 54.6 million).

Eurex Repo, which operates CHF- and EUR repo markets, set several new records in April: all Eurex repo markets had an average outstanding volume of €126.4 billion (+38 percent compared to April 2007). The Euro-Repo market hit an new record of €67.2 billion (+39 percent measured year-on-year). Its secured money market segment Euro GC Pooling rose by 212 percent with daily outstanding volume of €34.3 billion.

The electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range, saw a volume of € 7.4 billion (single counting) in April (April 2007: €9.2 billion).