Eurex Turns Over 73 Million Contracts In February

Eurex, the international derivatives market, traded and cleared 73.6 million contracts in February. Compared with February 2002, the world's leading derivatives exchange showed over 29 percent growth in volume, with a daily average of some 3.7 million contracts traded. The market participants, who are connected to Eurex from 650 locations worldwide, have already traded and cleared 158 million contracts at Eurex in 2003.

The highest-turnover segment in February, as in the months before, was capital market products with some 42 million contracts traded, accounting for over half the total Eurex turnover. The Euro-Bund future was again the leading product with 19.3 million contracts traded, over 40 percent higher than the February 2002 figure. In the Euro-Bobl future, 11.3 million contracts were traded, a 32 percent increase over the number traded in February 2002. In Euro-Schatz futures, with 8 million contracts traded, the volume was slightly higher than the year before.

Eurex Bonds, the electronic trading platform that rounds out the Eurex offerings in the fixed-income segment, showed a substantial increase in trading activity by its market participants in February 2003.

Turnover at Eurex Bonds was about twice as high as in February the year before, and was also 16 percent higher than in January 2003. Eurex Bonds posted volume of 14.87 billion euros in February (single counting), as compared with volumes of 12.83 billion and 7.42 billion euros in January 2003 and February 2002, respectively.

Equity-based derivatives at Eurex showed a volume of some 31 million contracts traded in February, 19.1 million contracts in the equity-index derivatives segment and 11.8 million contracts in the equity options segment. The turnover in equity-index derivatives was over 50 percent higher than in February the year before. The leading contract in equity-index derivatives in February was again the futures contract on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index with 8.1 million contracts traded, more than double the volume posted in February 2002. In the option on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 index, volume increased by as much as 143 percent, to 4.9 million contracts traded.

In the equity options segment, Dutch and French equity options showed high growth rates in February: The world's leading equity options exchange turned over a total of 430,000 contracts in Dutch equity options in February, more than five times the number traded in February 2002. The market share of the Dutch market is about 10 percent. The turnover in French equity options was over 270 percent higher than in February 2002.