CFTC certified a further 11 MSCI futures contracts for trading in the U.S.
The international derivatives market Eurex Exchange has been informed by the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission that an additional 11 MSCI futures fall under the scope of the ‘no-action’ letter and can be marketed in the U.S. This brings the total number of MSCI futures contracts listed on Eurex which are now available to U.S. investors to 15.
“Thanks to the CFTC decision, we further expand our equity index futures offering in the U.S. With our recently launched MSCI futures we offer for the very first time derivatives contracts that allow our investors to hedge their exposure in emerging markets and certain Asian countries,” said Michael Peters, member of the Eurex Executive Board. “The contracts will also provide an exchange-traded alternative to the OTC market; and they support the regulators’ objective to move OTC trading to exchanges and CCPs.”
Demand for Eurex’s MSCI derivatives continues to grow, a total of 365,000 contracts have been traded since the launch of a broader MSCI family at Eurex Exchange in March 2013. Currently open interest totals more than 170,000 contracts (including flex positions).
The listing of MSCI derivatives is linked to the growing success of indexation via ETFs based on MSCI indexes. Already 40 percent of ETF assets in equity ETFs are based on MSCI indexes. Altogether, $7 trillion of assets are now benchmarked against them, with roughly half of this held in the U.S.
