Eurex Turns Over More Than 95 Million Contracts In January - Record Turnover For Euro-Bund-Future And Option On The Euro-Bund-Future

The international derivatives exchange Eurex has enjoyed a positive start to 2005. The world’s largest derivatives exchange turned over 95.2 million contracts in January, with trading volume up by over 18 percent on the previous month, and more than 4 percent year on year. Approximately 4.5 million contracts per day were traded and settled in January. Open interest on Eurex, which is the number of open positions, continued to grow – totaling around 69 million contracts at the end of the month, an increase of approximately 22 percent year on year.

The strongest performance in January was once again delivered by the Fixed-Income Derivatives segment, with 55 million contracts traded. At 25.5 million contracts, Euro-Bund-Future trading grew by 24.5 percent year on year, a new one-month record (previous record: 25.4 million contracts in June 2003). Eurex also set a new monthly record in terms of trading with options on the Euro-Bund-Future, with 3.4 million contracts traded (previous record 3.3 million contracts in November 1999). Trading in the Euro-Bobl-Future and Euro-Schatz-Future reached 13.7 million (up 6.3 percent year on year) and over 11 million contracts, respectively.

Turnover of 40 million contracts was recorded for equity-based derivatives in January, of which 21.4 million were attributable to equity index derivatives and 18.6 million to equity options. January’s strongest performance in terms of equity index derivatives was once again put in by futures and the option on the DJ Euro STOXX 50 Index, whose combined total amounted to roughly 14.1 million contracts.

The electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range, recorded a volume of 11.6 billion euros (single counting) in January, an eight percent increase on the previous month. Average daily turnover in “Jumbo Pfandbriefe” rose by 77 percent to €57 million. Trading in European Covered Bonds – the products launched in November 2004 – was up by more than 217 percent month on month to €114 million.