The Global Markets Concept combines the competencies of Deutsche Börse as the leading European market for equities and index funds, Eurex as the world's Number One derivatives exchange and Clearstream International as one of the world's leading settlement organizations. Deutsche Börse Executive Board member Volker Potthoff said: "With the Global Markets Concept, we are applying our strength as a provider of the full range of integrated products and services to new markets and thus expanding our position as the preeminent marketplace in Europe." For the customers, as Potthoff pointed out, this means easy and low-cost access to a growing product portfolio with high liquidity.
Deutsche Börse, Eurex and Clearstream will offer trading and clearing for U.S. equities, exchange-traded funds and stock options starting in September. The "Xetra US Stars" segment on the Xetra trading platform will contain all stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) 30, S&P 100, Nasdaq 100 and Dow Jones Global Titans 50, bringing the total segment to roughly 200 equities. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will function as U.S. Market Experts making markets in US stocks and provide liquidity. US Market Experts quote continuously binding bid and ask prices with a minimum of 50,000 euros per quote. Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank AG, Finacor Rabe AG and Wertpapierhandelsbank Seydler AG with their experience as ledger brokers as well as in the German market will function in this capacity as well. Clearstream Banking will handle the transaction settlement in collective safe custody, with U.S. securities treated like domestic securities.
This will optimize the quality of trading in U.S. equities for private and institutional investors alike and bring the costs down to the level of a domestic securities transaction: U.S. equities can be traded on Xetra just as quickly, easily and cheaply as German blue chips. Deutsche Börse expects exchange-traded funds on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index to be forthcoming as further products for trading in its XTF segment.
The Eurex derivatives market will initially list around ten options on highly liquid U.S. stocks including Cisco, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. At least three market makers per stock option will provide for the underlying liquidity. Futures and options on the Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index, which contains the shares of 27 U.S. companies, have already been trading in the Eurex equity index derivatives segment since the end of April. Rudolf Ferscha, CEO of Eurex and member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Börse, commented: "With the introduction of the US segment Eurex expands its rapidly growing equity options segment to cover the largest equities market in the world. International stock options represent an important element of the Global Markets Concept. We enable our customers to execute trading and investment strategies in derivatives on U.S. underlyings in the European time zone."
Dow Jones Indexes, one of the leading global index providers, will incorporate the prices of U.S. stocks traded on Xetra in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index calculation. This means that when the new Xetra US Stars segment is launched at Deutsche Börse, the DJIA will already be calculated from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (CET), i.e. before the U.S. market opens. The Dow Jones Global Titans 50 index calculation will also reflect the Xetra prices before trading opens in New York; up to now, only the closing prices of the U.S. stocks have been included during this time.
