Record Trading Month On Eurex With Turnover Of Around 126 Million Contracts - First Six Months Close At A New High Of Approximately 640 Million Contracts - Record Turnover In Bund, Bobl And Schatz Futures

In June, Eurex, the international derivatives market, achieved a new monthly record of 126 million contracts traded, which represents a year on year rise of 34 percent. At the same time, the world’s largest derivatives exchange closed the first six months of 2005 with a new record. 640 million contracts were traded in the first half of the year, up around 15.5 percent on the first half of 2004 (553 million contracts). On average, 5.7 million contracts were traded daily in June.

The fixed-income derivatives segment also achieved a new record in June 2005, and remained the strongest segment with a total of 74.3 million contracts traded. This equates to a rise of 36.5 percent y-o-y (June 2004: 54.5 million contracts). All three benchmark products in this segment achieved new highs in June: The Euro Bund Future remained the most successful product on Eurex, at 34.6 million contracts (previous record: 30.7 million contracts in March 2005). The Euro-Bobl Future contributed 17.5 million contracts, the best result since March 2004 (16.9 million contracts). And with a record 16.2 million contracts traded, the Euro-Schatz Future recorded an increase of approximately 26 percent y-o-y and 73 percent m-o-m.

June trading in equity-based derivatives reached 51.5 million contracts, of which 31.6 million were equity index derivatives and 19.9 million equity options. The product with the highest turnover among equity index derivatives in June was the DJ Euro STOXX 50 Future, with around 14 million contracts traded, a rise of 27.5 percent y-o-y.

In June 2005, approximately €16.4 billion (single counting) was traded on the electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range. This represents a rise of around 50 percent y-o-y (June 2004: €10.9 million). Turnover in the “Jumbo Pfandbriefe” segment of the electronic bond trading platform Eurex Bonds totaled roughly €2 billion in June – a twofold increase over May 2004 (0.9 billion contracts), and a rise of almost 150 percent y-o-y.