Eurex launches further equity options on Austrian and Swiss stocks

The recently-launched Austrian equity options segment will be extended with five new options on Austrian Airlines, Intercell, Österreichische Post, Strabag and Wiener Städtische Versicherung.

The new options will be available as of December 10. Since the launch of Austrian equity options in September, Eurex says very competitive pricing has already gained it a market share of 25 per cent (with nominal value adjusted to be comparable with the local derivatives market).

To offer a further incentive to traders and to boost the liquidity of Austrian equity options, Eurex says it will lower the trading fee in December by 50 per cent to EUR0.10.

Two new equity options on Swatch Bearer Shares and BB Biotech will be launched on December 17 to boost Eurex’s Swiss equity options segment. The contract specifications of the new options will be in line with existing products.

Following the inclusion of Deutsche Börse and Volkswagen in the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 index, Eurex will increase the available contract months for equity options based on these two stocks from 24 to 60 months as of December 10.

Eurex will also introduce 107 new single stock futures in December and January. A block of 17 single stock futures will start trading on December 10, a further 20 on December 17, and another block of 20 will be launched on January 7.

Fifty-four out of the 57 new single stock futures will be based on UK stocks and will be denominated in sterling, while the other three will be based on Russian stocks and priced in US dollars. On January 21, Eurex will add a further 50 single stock futures based on the top US stocks in the S&P 500 index.