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The FLEX® Facility allows customers to tailor the exercise price and expiry date of European-style exercise individual equity options out to three years. Euronext.liffe currently offers FLEX® Facility individual equity options on 62 UK blue-chip companies. The facility also extends to FTSE 100 Index option contracts.
The FLEX® Facility for individual equity options was launched on 26 January 2004 to allow customers to migrate traditional over the counter (OTC) business onto exchange. Customers can therefore combine the product flexibility of the OTC market with the efficiencies of exchange trading and the security of centralised clearing.
UK individual equity options have continued to enjoy strong growth in 2004, trading 11.5 million contracts, up from 10 million contracts the previous year, an increase of 15%. This compares to overall market growth for Euronext.liffe of 14% in 2004 over 2003 volumes. Meanwhile open interest in FTSE 100 Index FLEX® options reached a new record high of 966,856 on 15 December 2004.
Fraser Cowie, Executive Director of Marketing at Euronext.liffe, said: “FLEX® Facility individual equity options were launched to provide the market with a combination of the best features of OTC and exchange trading. The fact that FLEX® Facility trading in individual equity options has already exceeded one million contracts since launch underlines the strong support the facility has already accrued amongst new and existing customers.”
