As Of February 21th 2005, Five New Single Stock Futures Will Be Traded On The Derivatives Market Of Borsa Italiana

On Monday 21th February 2005, Borsa Italiana’s IDEM market will launch five new single stock futures on individual shares: Autostrade, Banca Fideuram, Monte dei Paschi, Mediobanca and Pirelli.

IDEM, the Derivatives Market of Borsa Italiana, will include 27 single stock futures.

Market liquidity will be enhanced, as for the other futures contracts, by the presence of three market makers (Banca Aletti, Banca Caboto and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro), who are required to display bids and offers on a continuous basis.

The contracts will have both a quarterly maturity (March, June, September and December) and a monthly one. The last trading day is the third Friday of the maturity month. Trading hours will be from 9 pm CET to 5.40 pm CET as for all other derivatives products.

The single stock futures traded on IDEM recorded a strong increase since 2004: during January 2005, the daily standard contracts’ average daily volumes were 1,966 (1,127 in January 2004, up 74%). Open interest also increased strongly last month with now 54,431 open positions (+50% vs January 2004).