Eurex To Introduce Weekly Options On 24 April - Weekly Options Offer New Trading Opportunities For Market Participants

Eurex, the world's largest derivatives exchange, will become the first European exchange to introduce weekly options on 24 April. Weekly options, or options with weekly instead of monthly expiration dates, will be introduced on the benchmark indexes DAX®, Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50® and SMI. Eurex weekly options will increase flexibility by providing market participants with an efficient means to trade immediately ahead of the publication of key economic data.

By introducing the new weekly options, Eurex is responding to increasing demand for exchange traded options with very short lifetimes and increasing its portfolio of equity index options products.

With the exception of the expiration dates, the new Eurex weekly options will have the same contract specifications as the existing index options. With these new products, options with expiries every Friday will be available on Eurex.

Eurex is the leading equity index options exchange in Europe. In 2005, approximately 150 million equity index options contracts were traded on Eurex. In the first quarter of 2006, trading volume in equity index options was up 45 percent, compared with the first quarter of 2005.