Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, reported on Monday that a total of 199 million contracts were traded in March 2007. This is the strongest trading month ever on Eurex, an increase of approximately 34 percent compared with March 2006; the previous record trading month was May 2006 (174 million contracts). Further, on 14 March, Eurex set a new daily trading record with 15.4 million contracts. The average daily trading volume in March was 9 million contracts (new record) and 7.3 million for the first quarter. In Q1 2007, 467 million contracts were traded on Eurex, compared with 375 million for the first quarter of 2006 (plus 25 percent).
The equity index derivatives segment set a new record with volumes of 87.4 million contracts, up 44 percent compared to the previous record of June 2006 (60.4 million contracts). Futures and options on the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 and the DAX index reached new records of approximately 68.5 million and 14.3 million contracts respectively. In the segment equity derivatives, 31.6 millions contracts were traded (March 2006: 26.9 million). The growth was substantially driven by single stock futures, where volumes more than doubled to 5.2 million contracts year-on-year.
In March 2007, around 80 million contracts were traded in the fixed income derivatives segment (March 2006: 81.3 million contracts). Approximately 35 million contracts were traded in the Euro-Bund-Future. Trading volume in the Euro-Schatz Future set a new record with 19.8 million contracts (March 2006: 17.8 million contracts).
Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range, recorded a volume of €14.9 billion (single counting) in March, an increase of 8 percent year-on-year and 31 percent on the previous month.
