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Boerse Stuttgart, Germany’s leading exchange for retail investors, announced at a pressconference today that its new ETF segment would be launched on 13 October. Thanks to the ETF Bestx segment, the trading conditions available to Boerse Stuttgart’s retail investors will be even better, and there will be a clearly defined system of rules and regulations, subject to supervision under public law, for future ETF trading at the Stuttgart stock exchange. This regulatory framework, inter alia, sets binding spreads for specific minimum quote volumes of over 300 products. Investors trading in the new ETF segment stand to benefit from the best tradable prices on the market.
One of the main ways of achieving this, alongside the presence of the stock exchange’s trading experts, is the involvement of additional market makers. From launch day onwards, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank will continuously provide binding buy and sell quotes for the ETFs listed in the segment. “Unlike our competitors, who are predominantly concerned with institutional customers, Boerse Stuttgart is clearly focused on retail investors with its new ETF segment. We are delighted that Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank as leading market makers are supporting our efforts to create an investor-friendly and growth-oriented ETF Bestx segment. We intend to make further major improvements in price quality, transparency and security in the area of ETF trading with a view to becoming Europe’s most attractive platform for retail investors trading in ETFs as well,” said Christoph Lammersdorf, CEO of Boerse Stuttgart Holding GmbH.
With the introduction of ETF Bestx, Boerse Stuttgart has set itself the target of guaranteeing best prices and highest execution reliability during regular trading sessions from 9.00 to 20.00 hours CET. This is also clear from the explicit costs: from October, Boerse Stuttgart will become even cheaper for smaller orders. Transaction fees will be equivalent to 0.119 percent of the order volume with a cap of EUR 12.18 (plus 19 percent sales tax). “Our ETF trading system already offers very attractive prices. In the case of ETFs based on the DAX or on the DJ Euro Stoxx 50, we offer most of our prices without a spread. We want to ensure that investors can continue to trade a full range of products on a par with institutional investors with an unfailing emphasis on fairness, high quality and top conditions.” Said Michael Görgens, Head of Investment Fund and ETF Trading at Boerse Stuttgart. So far, 2009 has seen strong growth in the ETF segment at Boerse Stuttgart, and its ETF trading initiative has already boosted turnover to EUR 2.56 billion (from 2 January to 30 September 2009), an increase of 111 percent on the same period in 2008.
Boerse Stuttgart’s launch of the new ETF Bestx segment widens the range of standards it has established – tried and tested over its ten years as the leading market player in exchange trading with certificates – to include ETF trading. The Stuttgart stock exchange has every confidence in its superior market model, which, for example, integrates trading experts into electronic ETF trading. Their role is to ensure the quality of price determination even in volatile markets, to avoid partial executions, facilitate active stop-order management and actively support trading up to 20.00 hours CET.
Market views on the creation of the ETF Bestx trading segment
Andreas Fehrenbach, CEO of ETFlab Investment GmbH: “We are pleased that Boerse Stuttgart has decided to create a specific trading segment for ETFs with a firm set of rules and regulations. As a German investment company, we particularly welcome this strong commitment to exchange-traded index funds and are very keen to support it. We intend to be there at the launch with a listing of our entire product range.”
Thorsten Michalik, Head of db x-trackers, Deutsche Bank AG:“We are looking forward to developing an even closer partnership with Boerse Stuttgart in ETF trading. As a market maker for the new segment, we aim to collaborate with Boerse Stuttgart to offer our customers excellent services, highest execution reliability and the best products. We are confident that we can achieve a high rate of growth in the ETF trading of retail investors as well.”
Thomas Timmermann, Chairman of the Board of Commerz Derivatives Funds Solutions S. A.: “ComStage welcomes the launch of a premium segment for ETFs at Boerse Stuttgart. The IFX investment fund trading segment launched three years ago is now well-established and fully tried-and-tested. This expertise can now be passed on to ETF trading as well.”
