SFE Secures Certainty For Users Of The SPI®

The Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) has today signed an agreement with the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) which ensures that SFE's premier equity product, the Share Price Index futures contract (SPI®), will continue to be based on the existing All Ordinaries Index (AOI) until September 2001. SFE sought the new agreement as a result of the changes ASX is making to the AOI that are planned for introduction in April 2000. The agreement has the effect of minimising any disruption to the futures market caused by ASX's index restructure. The agreement guarantees certainty for SPI® users who currently hold open interest positions worth $26.6 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, ASX will continue to calculate and disseminate the existing AOI using the name of Share Price Index. Once the new ASX indices are in place, SFE will not list any new long-dated SPI® contracts based on the existing AOI. Additionally, SFE intends listing a new equity index product in March this year. The market will be consulted extensively to ensure that the new futures contract is based on the market's preferred underlying index. This planned product expansion will allow SFE to offer a comprehensive range of index derivatives products - via the forthcoming new index contract, the continuation of the SPI® and the existing Dow Jones AP/ELS futures and options products.