Press

Eurex, the international derivatives market, posted volume of 33.7 million contracts traded in August. Over 302 million contracts were traded at Eurex during the first eight months of the year, surpassing the previous year's eight-month total by 23 percent.

In the Bund future, the world's most heavily traded derivatives product, some 11.1 million contracts changed hands in August. Turnover in the Bobl future came to about 4.4 million contracts traded in August. Some 3.35 million contracts were traded in Schatz futures, an increase of 66 percent over the August 1999 figure for this product. In options on the Schatz future, 184,000 contracts were traded, three times the number traded in August 1999.

In the index derivatives, about 5.1 million contracts were traded at Eurex in August. Derivatives on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 index achieved turnover of some 1.6 million contracts traded (940,000 futures and 670,000 options), beating the previous year's August figure by 162 percent in the futures and 96 percent in the options. The derivatives launched on the Nemax 50 index in June are on a continuing, extremely favorable trend: During the third month of trading, trading volume was already up to about 94,000 contracts traded, after some 12,000 contracts in June and 45,000 contracts in July; that corresponds to an increase of 48 percent in the futures and 180 percent in the options.

In the equity derivatives, a new record was set in the options on Nokia with 334,000 contracts traded, beating the previous record of 300,000 contracts, set in July 2000, by 11 percent. A total of some 7.44 million equity options were traded in August, the second-best result on a monthly basis; this corresponds to an increase of about 47 percent over the figure posted for the same month of last year.

a/c/e, the new trading platform developed jointly by Eurex and CBOT for electronic trading at CBOT, got off to a very successful start. After 22,000 contracts on the first trading day, volume was already up to 30,000 contracts on the second day, and over 90,000 contracts were traded on the third day. On the last day of trading for the month, 138,000 contracts changed hands, setting a new record.

EUREX Trading Volume since 1990
(in contracts traded)