Amsterdam Exchanges Makes Flying Start To Millennium

The record for the number of securities transactions on one day was broken on the new millennium's very first day of trading. The number of securities transactions on 3 January 2000 was 174,000, smashing the previous record of 136,000 transactions set on 7 January 1999. The total number of securities transactions in January ultimately exceeded 2.2 million, an all time high and an increase of 52.8% compared with the same period last year. Share turnover also rose sharply by almost 50%. Amsterdam Exchanges' new market, now known as Euro.NM Amsterdam, also had a good month. The number of transactions increased by almost 184% compared with January 1999, and turnover rose by 76%. The total turnover on Amsterdam Exchanges' stock market in January was the highest ever at more than 168 billion EURO. A total of 5.1 million contracts were traded on Amsterdam Exchanges' options market in January, up more than 10% on the same month last year. The January expiration saw 585,000 contracts traded, and another 495,000 options transactions were settled via Amsterdam Exchanges' clearing division. Together this amounted to more than a million transactions, another record. Premium turnover amounted to 6.7 million EURO (counting both sides of transactions). Open interest, the number of open option's contracts which is used to measure liquidity in the market, amounted to almost 11 million contracts after expiration. Amsterdam Exchanges' agricultural futures market did not achieve the same high level of results as in January 1999. Turnover fell by 14% but showed a good recovery compared with December 1999 with a month-on-month rise of 45%.