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15.1 million transactions were completed on Euronext’s cash markets in September 2005, up 39.7% on the same month last year, making it the busiest month ever. More than 118 million cash transactions were registered during the first three quarters of 2005, up 12.9% on the same period in 2004, representing a daily average of 616,000.
Shares
14.6 million transactions were completed in shares in September 2005, up 41.3% on September 2004. A total of 114 million transactions were registered in the year-to-date, up 13.6% on the same period in 2004. This represents an average of 589,000 share transactions completed each day.
Trackers
Transactions in trackers amounted to 33,000 during September 2005, up 122.1% year-on-year. 232,000 transactions were completed in trackers since the beginning of the year, up 10.5% year-to-date.
Derivatives products
Euronext.liffe, the international derivatives business of Euronext, traded 51.9 million futures and options contracts in September, up 5% year-on-year. 450 million futures and options contracts have been traded in the first nine months of the year, up 3% on the same period in 2004. Average daily volume for the year-to-date is 2.3 million contracts. To enable meaningful comparison with last year’s volumes, equity and index options volumes have been rebased to reflect the change in contract size (please see footnote in table attached).
After these adjustments equity products traded 21.6 million futures and options contracts during the month.
Short Term Interest Rate products traded 27.6 million futures and options contracts in September, up 5% both on September 2004 and in the year-to-date. Average daily volume in the year-to-date is 1.2 million contracts.
Commodity products saw considerable growth in September. Volumes were up 36% on September last year. In the year-to-date volumes are up 12%.
In response to strong customer demand for more harmonised equity derivatives contracts, on 9 May Euronext.liffe introduced new larger CAC 40 Index Option (‘new-style’) contracts. The effect of this change enables customers to trade a tenth the number of contracts to achieve the same level of market exposure.
To enable accurate like-with-like comparison of activity in the CAC 40 options market in 2004 and 2005 we have rebased volumes in the CAC 40 Option contract. This adjustment treats all volumes in the old-style contracts as if they were new-style larger contracts, by dividing volume by ten.
The same rebased figures applied to French individual equity option volumes where a similar change in contract size came into effect on 20 June.
This press release has been prepared using actual volumes for the month, apart from for the last trading day when an estimate based on the average daily volume for the current month is used. Final detailed figures for the month will be published three working days after the end of the month on the Euronext websites: www.euronext.com and www.liffe.com.
