Eurex Turns Over 57 Million Contracts In February - Index Products Show 78 Percent Growth In Volume

Eurex, the international derivatives market, traded and cleared over 57 million contracts in February. Compared with February 2001, the world's leading derivatives exchange showed about 17 percent growth. With this volume for the month, Eurex traded about 2.85 million contracts on a daily average. Eurex thus continued its very favorable trend in trading volume from January in February as well, and has already turned over a total of more than 122 million contracts during the first two months of the year.

In February, capital market products were again the highest-turnover segment with more than 32 million contracts traded, a 3 percent increase slightly higher than the monthly total for February 2001. The capital market products at Eurex were also the world's most successful exchange-traded derivatives family again in February: The Euro Bund future was the highest-volume contract in this segment and at Eurex as a whole, with 13.7 million contracts traded, ahead of the Euro-Bobl future with 8.6 million contracts and the Euro Schatz future with 7.8 million contracts traded.

In equity-based derivatives, 24.7 million contracts were traded in February, comprising 12.7 million contracts in the equity index derivatives segment and 12 million contracts in the equity options segment. This corresponds to an increase of 78 percent over the February 2001 volume in futures and options on indices, and 16 percent in the equity options.

In the equity index derivatives, the futures contract on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 posted 150 percent growth in volume with some 4 million contracts traded compared with February 2001, even with the option on the DAX, which showed 54 percent growth in volume. The option on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50, with 2 million contracts traded, was 89 percent higher than the previous month's figure. The derivatives on the Nemax 50, with 550,000 contracts traded, showed 62 percent growth in volume compared with February 2001.

In the equity options segment, the option on equities of Deutsche Telekom, with 1.65 million contracts traded in February, was more or less even with the option on Nokia, which showed a 55 percent increase in volume with 1.6 million contracts traded. The option on DaimlerChrysler