Trading volume at international derivatives exchange Eurex reached 162.4 million contracts in July 2007, 52% more than the 107 million traded in July 2006. The daily average trading volume was 7.4 million contracts, compared with 5.1 million a year ago. Drivers of growth were the equity index and fixed income derivatives segments. The first seven months of this year saw a volume of 1.13 billion contracts, an increase of 22% over the same period last year.
Equity index derivatives saw the biggest growth: the segment reached 62.5 million contracts, an increase of 66% on the 37.5 million contracts in July 2006. Of the 62.5 million contracts, 27.2 million were traded of the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 index future, compared with 16.3 million in July 2006, and another 19.8 million in the Dow Jones Euro STOXX 50 index option. DAX options and futures recorded a combined volume of more than 13 million contracts.
Contract turnover in the fixed income segment in July this year was up 45% to 73 million. The Euro Bund future saw a volume of 33 million contracts compared with 21.7 million in July 2006. Fifteen million contracts were traded in the Euro Bobl futures – an increase of 34%, and 15.6 million contracts in the Euro Schatz future – a 47% rise. Options on the Euro Bund future and Euro Bobl future set a new record with 5.5 million and 2.5 million contracts respectively. The previous record stood at 5.4 million in June 2007 for Bund and 2.1 million in July 2006 for Bobl.
Trading volume in equity derivatives accounted for 26.7 million contracts. The most heavily traded equity option was Allianz, with 2.9 million contracts. The most heavily traded single stock future was on Banco Bilbao, with 736,600 contracts.
Approximately €12.12 billion ($16.56 billion, single counting) was traded in July on the electronic trading platform Eurex Bonds, which rounds out Eurex’s fixed-income product range for June 2007 to €17 billion.