Eurex To Launch Options On Dow Jones Euro STOXX SM Sector Indexes - Four New Option Contracts Added To Dow Jones STOXX Product Family

On September 24, Eurex, the international derivatives market, is launching four new option contracts on the sector indexes Banks, Technology, Telecommunications and Healthcare of the Dow Jones Euro STOXX SM. The derivatives exchange already introduced eight futures on these sectors for the Dow Jones Euro STOXX SM and Dow Jones STOXX SM 600 sector indexes on March 19. Market makers will also provide for underlying liquidity in the new products.

With the introduction of its new sector index options, Eurex is expanding its already successfully established segment for sector index derivatives, and is thus responding to the growing level of activity in the OTC market. Eurex is Europe's leading provider in equity and index derivatives. In the meantime, its product line not only includes options on leading indexes like Dow Jones STOXX SM 50 and Dow Jones Euro STOXX SM 50, DAX, Nemax 50, SMI and FOX, but also a large number of options on the most liquid European equities, including all of the German and Swiss blue chips as well as options on Neuer Markt stocks. A total of about 100 million equity and index options were traded at Eurex during the first half of 2001, over 29 million of them in index options, corresponding to growth of 40 percent against the first half of last year, and about 70 million contracts in equity options, representing an increase of 55 percent against the same period of last year. As already reported, Eurex will start trading euro-denominated U.S. stock options on the same date. With the introduction of options on the 10 most liquid U.S. stocks, Eurex will be offering market participants trading and investment strategies in derivatives on shares of AOL Time Warner, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, EMC, General Electric, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems for the first time in the European time zone.