Eurex Turns Over 67 Million Contracts In June - Record Trading Volumes In Equity Index Products - Total Of 368 Million Contracts Traded In First Half Of 2002

Some 67 million contracts were traded and cleared at Eurex, the international derivatives market, in June. Compared with June 2001, the world's leading derivatives exchange expanded in volume by about 26 percent. For the first half of the year, the growth in volume was about 14 percent, rising to the highest mid-year volume to date of about 368 million contracts traded.

As in previous months, the fixed-income segment was the highest-volume segment again in June, with 34.7 million contracts traded, representing about half of the Eurex turnover; trading in this segment rose by some 12 percent. The Euro Bund future was again the leading contract, increasing in volume by about 9 percent from the previous year's June figure to 15.4 million contracts traded. Some 8.8 million contracts were traded in the Euro Bobl future in June, and about 8.3 million contracts in the Euro Schatz future. Both contracts showed about 20 percent growth in volume compared with the respective figures for June last year. In equity-based derivatives, 32.4 million contracts were traded in June, comprising 22 million contracts in the equity-index derivatives segment and 10.4 million contracts in the equity options segment. The volume traded in equity index derivatives more than doubled compared with the same month of last year and set a new monthly record (previous record: 18.9 million contracts in September 2001).

The leading contract in equity index derivatives was the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 future, which more than tripled in volume compared with the previous year's figure and set a new monthly record with 9.8 million contracts traded (previous record: September 2001, 7.1 million contracts). On June 19 and 20, some 1.2 million contracts were traded in this future on each of these days, putting it over the one million contract mark in daily volume for the first time, a level previously only surpassed by capital market products, the Euro Bund future, Euro Bobl future and Euro Schatz future.

Volume in the option on the Dow Jones Euro StOXX 50 index increased 95 percent in June, setting a new record with 3 million contracts traded (previous record: October 2001, 2.6 million contracts).