LIFFE To List Equity Options On Eight Technology Stocks

The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) today announced that it will be listing a group of new technology equity options. The new options, which are all on stocks included within the FTSE 100 companies, will enhance LIFFE's existing range of 83 individual equity options. The technology equity options will be introduced on to LIFFE CONNECT™ in two phases. The first phase of options will be available for trading on and from Monday 21 February 2000. These are ARM Holdings plc, CMG plc, Colt Telecom Group plc and Energis plc. The second phase of options will be available for trading on and from Monday 20 March 2000. These are Logica plc, Misys plc, Sage Group plc and Sema Group plc. Given the high price of each of the underlying stocks introduced in phase one, these options will have an underlying contract size of 100 shares. The options introduced in the second phase will be traded in the standard contract size of 1,000 shares. Commenting on the new listing, Dan Casey, LIFFE's new Managing Director of Marketing and Development said: "The advent of the techMARK 100 and techMARK All-Share indices, and the continued growth of the technology sector, have stimulated huge investor interest. There is increasing market activity in the sector, and therefore a growing demand for these new products. By listing options on these eight stocks, LIFFE is meeting the needs of its customers, responding both to the rapidly growing interest in technology stocks and to the innovative and expanding nature of the underlying markets."