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European July derivatives volumes in summer lull

LONDON: Summer doldrums becalmed many major contracts on European financial futures and options exchanges with July turnovers mostly down sharply on the previous month, exchange figures show.

But there was also a clear decline in turnover from last year with most of the top contracts showing significant losses from July 1994. Bucking the trend however, was DTB's Dax option with a rise of 23 percent over the previous month and increase of 44 percent over July last year to take the number one spot among stock index contracts. Swedish equity derivatives did well on London's OMLX with the OMX option putting on 40 percent in July to more than half a million contracts, while Amsterdam's EOE index option gained 70 percent on the month.LIFFE's new FTSE 100 Index FLEX Options, launched June 30, traded over 20,000 lots in July. All of the top 10 European short rate contracts showed sharp declines on the month with Spain's Mibor future off 92 percent following expiry of Meff rf's active June contract.

LIFFE's Euromark future remained busiest short rate contract, despite a 46 percent decline in turnover during July, and the London exchange's short sterling future held second place even after a drop of 43 percent. However, Matif's notionnel future lost its number one spot as most active European derivatives contract overall, tumbling to fourth place after a 48 percent slump in monthly turnover, which was also down 34 percent on July last year. LIFFE's bund future was down 14 percent on the month but it still took over the top spot while Germany's Dax option moved up from fifth to second overall. All of the top 10 long rate contracts showed double digit declines in monthly turnover.-Reuter