News Centre

Market briefing

February saw the tailwind of safe haven flows from the coronavirus outbreak as investors rotated out of equities and into bonds. The first tentative signs of the virus spreading in Europe saw volumes in our core benchmark futures spike. Volumes were strong across the curve, with Buxl futures the outperformer in the German benchmarks, up 86% month-on-month (M-o-M). The Italian and French segments continued to see robust M-o-M growth (+31%, +19% and +16.9%). These are two sectors that continue to grow and is testament to the liquidity picture that members have provided in volatile markets. As we moved into the final stages of the month, volumes continued to increase as the race to lower yields, fueled by safe haven flows and a repricing in U.S. markets of Fed intervention, kept pace. This has seen volumes in both futures and options reach new highs as we enter March. In February, weeklies on Bund options were the standout performer, up over 282%. Options on BTP futures were a close second on the month, seeing 54.7% M-o-M growth. [...]

Market briefing 

Markets never liked uncertainty and the fear of an epidemic turning into a pandemic is felt by all. Despite the exceptional bout of volatility, the Eurex market infrastructure and liquidity pools in our benchmark products have proven to be robust. There was a surge in demand for hedging which naturally led to a flight to quality in terms of the choice of hedging instruments, with the largest derivative volumes executed in the EURO STOXX 50® index, Banks sector, DAX, mini-DAX, VSTOXX®, STOXX® Europe 600, SMI, EURO STOXX 50® dividends and TRFs. Due to the unfortunate spread of the virus outside of China, KOSPI 200 options were also heavily utilized for executing regional hedges. Futures demand driven by Asia-based clients was visible during our extended early trading hours where volumes have now surpassed 10m traded contracts since the launch of this service [...]