Liffe, the European-based derivatives business of NYSE Euronext, has announced the launch of futures on 13 MSCI indices on its wholesale derivatives service Bclear.
Liffe, the European-based derivatives business of NYSE Euronext, has announced the launch of futures on 13 MSCI indices on its wholesale derivatives service Bclear.
The indices went live on 16 February.
The 13 MSCI indices are widely used by asset managers as benchmarks of companies’ performance in a range of regions and markets around the world and together they offer global coverage.
Liffe’s launch of futures on the MSCI indices is designed to make up for the lack of regional, exchange traded index futures outside Europe today.
Given the worldwide span of the contracts being listed, MSCI will offer intra-day prices to enable customers to calculate an accurate mark-to-market during their working day.
Garry Jones, executive director of Liffe, says: ‘We are launching these contracts to meet the needs of brokers who want to trade futures on a range of MSCI indices. The indices form the basis for three of the world’s top ten most traded exchange traded funds, so by providing customers with a flexible and secure way to hedge their ETF positions, we also hope to expand the range of our wholesale service, Bclear, further.’
Theodore Niggli, managing director of MSCI Barra, says: ‘We are excited to have licensed the Bclear platform for a series of futures contracts based on key MSCI Indices, as these indices are frequently used as benchmarks across the investment community.’
Bclear has processed over 380 million equity derivative contracts since launch in 2005.
Volumes processed through the service in 2008 were 66 per cent higher than the previous year.
