Hugh Freedberg, LIFFE's Chief Executive, said, "LIFFE's suite of Swapnote® contracts have had an encouraging start since their launch on 20 March. Swapnote® futures offer the European fixed income market potentially superior hedging and trading opportunities to contracts based on government bonds. We expect to see further growth in these products."
LIFFE traded an average daily nominal value of £355 billion (?564 billion) and a total value of £7,808 billion (?12,414 billion) in March 2001, up 52% on March 2000.
The total value traded on LIFFE during the first quarter was £21,956 billion, an increase of 52% over the same period last year. Volume in LIFFE's flagship contract, Three Month Euribor, saw an increase of 48% on March 2000 and a 44% increase on the first quarter 2000. LIFFE's total equity products continue to grow, up 47% on March 2000 with individual equity options up 79%.
During the first nine weeks of trading Universal Stock Futures have traded over 211,000 contracts, the equivalent of over 67.8 million of the underlying shares, with a value of approximately £578 million (?920 million). Open interest has been rising steadily since launch and has already reached more than 44,000 lots. This represents an equivalent underlying value of over £147 million (?235 million).
The following records were set in March 2001:
- Three Month Euribor Option set a new daily volume record of 146,235 on 30 March (previous daily record of 128,184 set on 22 March 2001)
- FTSE 100 Index Future set a new daily volume record of 151,724 on 14 March (previous daily record of 148,523 set on 12 June 2000)
- FTSE 100 Index Option set a new daily volume record of 112,223 on 14 March (previous daily record of 92,075 set on 16 February 2001)
