In the U.S. segment, Xetra, Eurex and Clearstream Banking are combining their strengths and offering investors a complete line of U.S. products at the lowest possible costs. "By making this segment available, we want to become the leading platform in the European time zone for exchange trading in U.S. securities," said Volker Potthoff, member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Börse. The most important advantage for investors, he added, are the narrow spreads, which result in low trading costs. At the same time, as he went on to point out, these U.S. equities can now be traded continuously on Xetra.
Eurex CEO Rudolf Ferscha said: "By introducing the options on the most liquid U.S. stocks, we are further expanding our successful stock option segment. Equity-based derivatives offer great added value and have significant growth potential." As Ferscha put it, investors expect the leading derivatives exchange to offer them intelligent products for equity-based derivatives on American underlying instruments for their risk management.
The U.S. segment is the first building block in the Global Markets Concept, with which the partners Xetra, Eurex and Clearstream Banking want to further expand their international portfolio of products and services. As the next step within the framework of the Global Markets Concept, a segment for Dutch securities will follow in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Börse has enlisted the support of Van der Moolen and AOT Stock Specialist as Dutch Market Experts, who will provide binding quotes for all Dutch securities in the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50. Eurex is already trading eight Dutch stock options.
With the launch of the new U.S. segment, Dow Jones Indexes, one of the leading global index providers, is incorporating the Xetra prices of the U.S. securities in its index calculation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and Dow Jones Global Titans 50. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is thus now calculated and published on the basis of Xetra prices from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. CET, before the markets open in the United States.
Five so-called US Market Experts make the market in the U.S. securities on Xetra and provide for liquidity by continuously quoting binding bid and ask prices at a minimum of 50,000 euros per quote. On Eurex, at least three market makers per stock option provide for liquidity. Eleven "Xetra US Partners" will pass the low Xetra trading fees on to their customers. Private investors can thus trade the U.S. securities at the same conditions as domestic blue chips. The smallest order size for private investors is one share. The Xetra US Partners manage a total of about 5 million private investor portfolios.
Private investors can view the entire order book in the U.S. securities on the Internet via the "Xetra Live" information screen. Every order can be followed in real time. The order book shows the 10 best bid and ask prices quoted in Xetra. The Xetra Live information screen is set up like the Xetra trading screens and is available free of charge until the end of the year at www.deutsche-boerse.com under Market Data/Xetra Live.
