The international derivatives exchange Eurex will be launching around 170 further single stock futures on stocks listed on the Dow Jones STOXX® 600, RDXxt® USD and S&P 500 indices in the period leading up to February 2008. The products will be introduced from October 8th onwards in eight blocks of up to 40 futures each. As of this date, Eurex will also be extending the contract months for all single stock futures by an additional calendar month, while the maximum term will remain unchanged.
With the new products, Eurex will offer single stock futures on more than 570 equities from 18 countries in four currencies. For the first time, single stock futures on Norwegian equities in EUR will be traded. This extension underlines Eurex’ position as the leading pan-European market for equity derivatives. Further, Eurex extends its product offering with a new currency with the launch of single stock futures on major US equities in USD.
The contract specifications for the new futures generally correspond to those that apply to the existing products. All single stock futures are settled in cash. As of October 8th, the contract months for all single stock futures will be the next 13 calendar months (currently 12) and the two annual months out of the December cycle. Single stock futures can be traded from 8.50 a.m. until 5.45 p.m. CET, with the exception of stock futures on Russian ADRs (on the last trading day 4.40 p.m. CET).
Equity-based derivatives, i.e. single stock futures, equity options and equity index derivatives, account for around 60 percent of Eurex’ turnover. Eurex has been offering single stock futures since October 2005 and is now one of the world’s largest and fast growing markets for these derivatives in terms of the number of contracts traded. Turnover has amounted to around 44.2 million contracts this year so far, compared with 35.6 million contracts in all 2006.
