Today NYSE Liffe announced that it will be introducing American-style options on the shares of the Dutch company Mediq N.V. from 6 October 2009. These new options (ticker symbol: MDQ) will expire on the third Friday of the contract month and will have initial lifetimes of 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9 months. Each Mediq option will represent 100 shares in Mediq and will be cleared via LCH.Clearnet SA. Liquidity in the options will be supported by All Options (PMM) and trading will take place on LIFFE CONNECT.
The market for Mediq options will be supported by the highly successful ‘full screen’ central market model pioneered in Amsterdam, and used in Brussels, London and Paris. This model gives investors access to competitive prices throughout the trading day by ensuring a constant display of bid and offer prices, thus improving on-screen liquidity, enhancing the quality of the market and providing added value for customers.
Alan van Griethuysen, Business Head Benelux and Asia of NYSE Liffe said: “With the listing of options on Mediq we are expanding our successful Dutch equity option section. This section offers investors the possibility to invest in a wide range of sectors and covers all AEX-index constituents and most of the Amsterdam Midkap-index constituents.”
Until August,105 million equity options were traded on NYSE Liffe in 2009. 50% of this volume was traded on the Amsterdam market.