In Amsterdam and the rest of Europe, January saw a great deal of interest in financials. The indices that experienced the greatest rises were the Amsterdam Financials Sector index and the FTSE Eurotop Banks Sector index.
On the derivatives market of Euronext Amsterdam, equity options performed particularly well. A total of 5.7 million contracts were traded in January, representing a 31% increase on the same month last year.
There was a drop in the number of potato contracts traded on both the spot market and the commodities market. However, there was heavy trading in pig futures, which was 47% up on January 2000.