Eurex Turns Over 56 Million Contracts In April - New Record Results In Nokia Option - STOXX 50 Future With 90 Percent Growth In Volume

Eurex, the international derivatives market, traded and cleared over 56 million contracts in April. Compared with April 2001, the world's leading derivatives exchange thus posted an increase in volume of about five percent. Eurex shows a total of 241 million contracts traded during the first four months of the year, which is about 25 million contracts or 11 percent higher than the number traded during the same period of last year. The result in options on Nokia was outstanding again in April, setting a new worldwide record with over 2 million contracts traded.

The fixed-income segment was again the highest-turnover segment in April, with 31 million contracts traded. With this result, the capital market products at Eurex were also the world's most successful exchange-traded derivatives family again in April: The highest-volume contract in this segment and at Eurex as a whole was the Euro Bund future with 13 million contracts traded, ahead of the Euro Bobl future with 8.2 million contracts traded and the Euro Schatz future with volume of 7.9 million contracts.

In equity-based derivatives, some 25 million contracts were traded in April, comprising 11.3 million contracts in the equity-index derivatives segment and 13.6 million contracts in the equity options segment. Compared with April 2001, this corresponds to a 32 percent increase in trading volume for the futures and options on indices, and 10 percent growth in the equity options.

In the equity-index derivatives, the futures contract on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 ranked first with 3.6 million contracts traded, representing 90 percent growth in turnover for this product, followed by the option on the DAX with 3.5 million contracts (three percent higher than the year before). The turnover in options on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50, with 1.8 million contracts traded, was about 48 percent higher than one year ago.

In the equity options segment, the highest volume was posted in the option on Nokia shares with over two million contracts traded and a 71 percent growth in volume against the April 2001 figure. The turnover in Nokia options also set a new record (previous record: 1.98 million contracts in March 2002). The option on DaimlerChrysler ranked second in April with turnover of 1.8 million contracts (29 percent higher than in April last year), ahead of the option on Deutsche Telekom with 1.2 million contracts traded, slightly lower than the previous year's April volume. Among the options in the Euro STOXX Component Index, the Dutch equity options showed especially strong growth in volume: KPN with 30,000 contracts traded (560 percent), Royal Dutch with 16,000 contracts (180 percent) and ABN Amro, also 16,000 contracts traded (320 percent).