Trading Volume Up 32% In Parisbourse Derivatives Markets - The Month's Euro Notional Trading Volume Shows Five-Fold Increase Compared With December

More than 19 million contracts (19,037,272) were traded on the de ParisBourse SA derivatives markets, a 32.2% increase relative to December. This is the largest rise in number of contracts since September 1999. The Euro Notional futures contract showed the strongest rise, with average daily trading volume up five-fold compared with December 1999 (139,644 contracts per day vs 25,582). Open interest rose more than 150%, to 76,289 contracts at end-January from 29,894 at end-December. With an average quantity of 150 at 1 tick (minimum price fluctuation) on the best limit and a 1,250 average quantity on the first 5 limits, the Euro Notionnel bond future enjoys instantaneous liquidity. Euro Notional options recorded a trading volume of 2,600. Equity and index derivatives recorded a 16.4% rise in trading volume. Volume in the CAC40 option was up 20.4% from a month earlier and the CAC40 future rose 8.3%. Investors are increasingly interested in futures on the Dow Jones STOXX SM sector indexes, products introduced last year and unique in Europe: 1,210 contracts were traded this month, up from 295 in December 1999. The product range will be expanded with the 21 February launch of new futures contracts on the following sector indexes which are narrowly defined to allow investors a tight focus: Dow Jones STOXX SM L&M Bank, Energy, and Telecommunications. With average daily volume of around 1,000 contracts (50,000 metric tons traded), the commodities sector is showing a strong start for the year. Trading volume in the Rapeseed contract was mainly marked by the expiry of the February 2000 contract. The final number of contracts traded on the ParisBourse derivatives markets in 1999 is 188,084,172.