Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) today announced that it will be listing the USD-denominated Nikkei 225 Index Futures contract on SGX on Friday, 24 November 2006.
The listing of the USD Nikkei 225 Index Futures contract will allow institutional and international investors the flexibility to hold their portfolio in Yen and/or USD currency according to their investment and trading needs. For investors who trade the Nikkei product range actively, the availability of a USD contract complements the Yen-denominated contract and offers trading and arbitrage opportunities.
The introduction of the USD Nikkei 225 futures contract is in response to market demand. As the global derivatives market experiences strong growth, SGX has seen increasing contribution from its futures contracts in the past year. In particular, the Yen-denominated Nikkei contract from January to October 2006 grew 69.4% to over 15 million contracts, compared to 9 million contracts traded in the same period last year.
In building SGX as a derivatives hub and offshore risk management centre, SGX is committed to developing a diversified suite of products to meet different risk and investment needs of our customers.
The new USD contract will commence trading at 11.30am Singapore time on the first day of trading (24 November 2006), and will revert to the regular start time of 7.45am thereafter. The first contract month for the new USD Nikkei contract is December 2006.
Please refer to Appendix 1 for key trading information of the USD Nikkei 225 futures contract.
