The open interest of OSE DJIA Futures stood at 1,004 contracts(flash number) as of November 6, exceeding 1,000 mark for the first time since the May 28 2012 launch.
OSE DJIA Futures contract is based on Dow Jones Industrial Average IndexSM (DJIA), a major benchmark of U.S. equity market and denominated in Japanese Yen with the nominal value derived from multiplying DJIA by 100 JPY. This Yen denominated US Index futures contract allows the Yen based investors to trade and manage DJIA moves being free from FX fluctuation.
Further, it provides a capital efficient trading opportunity such as the combination of OSE DJIA Futures and Nikkei 225 related products (e.g. Nikkei 225 mini). For example, the risk of a long in OSE DJIA Futures and a short in Nikkei 225 mini being offset in a normal market condition, the required margins for the combined positions can be less than the total gross margins of two independent positions.
The recent increase of open interest is due to the investors who began using OSE DJIA Futures in order to hedge the risk of both Japan and the U.S. markets especially in the Japanese night session while more and more OSE market participant firms (online brokers) have started offering this product to retail investors. A further growth of OSE DJIA Futures is anticipated.