The order-book statistics, which are based on single counting of all transactions in the order book of Xetra and broker-supported trading on the floor, show that a total of 70 billion euros in volume was traded in equities on the German stock exchanges in December 2003 (December 2002: 53.9 billion euros). Of this total, some 66.5 billion euros was traded in German equities, and some 3.5 billion euros in foreign equities. About 93 percent of the volume in domestic shares was traded through Xetra, another four percent was posted in trading on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse). In foreign equities, some 81 percent of the volume was traded on Xetra and the Frankfurt trading floor.
The Xetra share of equities trading rose again in the year just ended. In December 2003, 4.8 million transactions were executed on Xetra - some 12 percent more than the year before (December 2002: 4.3 million transactions). A total of some 71 million transactions were executed on Xetra in 2003 - some 20 percent more than the year before (2002: 60 million transactions).
In 2003, the liquidity in Xetra trading improved further, with even narrower spreads and greater market depth. Investors and intermediaries profit from the enhanced liquidity in the form of lower trading costs; for issuers, the higher liquidity means lower costs for capital procurement in own financing. Based on the Xetra liquidity measure (XLM), the implicit transaction costs in the DAX for an order size of 25,000 euros were reduced by more than half, from 16.5 bp in January to 8.1 bp in December. The spreads, the middle price between the best bid and ask price, were reduced from 13.8 bp to 7 bp in the DAX on Xetra.
XLM measures liquidity in electronic securities trading based on the implicit transaction costs and is calculated in basis points (1 bp = 0.01 percent) for all securities in continuous trading, for a roundtrip in the Xetra order book.
In December 2003, Siemens was the most liquid DAX blue chip with 6.4 bp for an order size of 100,000 euros; in the MDAX, Depfa Bank was highest with 24 bp.
Siemens was the highest-volume DAX blue chip in December with 6.1 billion euros in shares traded. Puma was the top MDAX stock with 204.7 million euros in volume. Holsten was the leading SDAX stock with 19.5 million euros traded in its shares, and T-Online the top TecDAX stock with 206.1 million euros in share volume. The DAXEX was again the highest-turnover exchange-traded fund, with some 1.3 billion euros.
