"Growing interest in the trading of Jumbo Pfandbriefe underscores the high acceptance of our Eurex Bonds trading platform in the market", said Rudolf Ferscha, CEO of Eurex. "In the first week of December, a new high was achieved in the trading of Jumbo Pfandbriefe, with average daily turnover of 80 million euros."
An annual management fee of 0.09 percent makes eb.rexx® Jumbo Pfandbriefe EX the most competitively priced exchange-traded fund in Europe, according to the issuer. Indexchange has rounded out its existing range of bond ETFs in the XTF segment through introduction of eb.rexx® Jumbo Pfandbriefe EX. These five bond ETFs track the performance of indexes covering German government bonds (eb.rexx Government Germany-family) and European corporate bonds (iBoxx Euro Liquid Corporates). The XTF segment offers the largest number of exchange-traded bond index funds on any European stock exchange.
Deutsche Börse has been calculating the eb.rexx® Jumbo Pfandbriefe selection index since December 1. In all, the company’s Information Services division calculates and publishes roughly 1,700 indices. This makes Deutsche Börse one of the most significant index providers worldwide. Additionally, Information Services compiles, distributes and markets independent capital market information such as price data, trading statistics, and back office information for banks and financial institutions.
Fixed-income ETFs in the XTF segment continued to see growing demand in 2004: By the end of November, the total assets under management of the five then listed fixed-income ETFs had grown by 36 percent year on year to €928 million. The traded volume in these bond ETFs was €709 million as per the end of November - more than twice the amount recorded for the entire year in 2003 (€329 million).
Background
The electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds is operated jointly by the Eurex international derivatives exchange and leading international trading houses and, along with Eurex Repo, completes the range offered by Eurex in the fixed-income arena. Eurex Bonds offers trading - and clearing via Eurex Clearing - of German government bonds as well as issues by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the European Investment Bank, individual Federal States in Germany, and Jumbo Pfandbriefe. Additionally, trading in underlyings allows Eurex Bonds to offer an attractive combination of bonds and futures contracts traded on Eurex.
Exchange-traded funds are index funds that, like equities, can be traded continuously on the stock exchange at the current market price. The purchase of fund units through the stock exchange is free of all front-end or back-end loads. Investors only bear the transaction fees typical for the purchase and sale of securities, and can buy the shares through any bank that offers trading in equities. At present, 56 ETFs are listed on Deutsche Börse’s XTF segment. Approximately 99 percent of fund product turnovers in Germany are carried through Xetra. All important trading parameters for equities trading, which include continuous trading, auctions, a minimum lot of one fund unit, as well as Designated Sponsors who provide for liquidity, also apply to XTF.
