Derivatives Trading Up 37% In Paris

More than 18 million lots (18,238,920) changed hands on ParisBourse SBF SA derivatives markets in September, 37% more than in August. This makes September the year's second most active month after January, when 20.4 million lots were traded. The total for the nine months to September 30 was 140 million lots compared with 90 million for the whole of 1998. For equity and index derivatives, trading was driven by record activity in underlying assets and rose 37.4% on the previous month. Trading in the CAC 40 future was up 30% to 2,079,190 lots for the month, and averaged 94,509 per day. In equity options, the figure reached nearly 8 million lots - 7,890,031, or 72% more than in August. The five most actively traded contracts were Carrefour, Elf Aquitaine, Axa, Vivendi and France Telecom. Three new options contracts were launched during the month: Crédit Lyonnais, Equant and Sidel.