September 2, 1998

I- MONEP equity derivatives

August trading volume in equity derivatives totaled 6,693,770 contracts, compared with 6,183,607 contracts in July (up 8.3%).

Index derivatives ¾which include derivatives on CAC 40 and Dow Jones STOXX® indexes¾ showed a 22.9% rise, with a total trading volume of 3,119,201 contracts, compared with 2,538,096 contracts in July.

Total open interest at 31 August stood at 11,818,317 contracts, up 14.9% from the 10,283,477 contracts recorded at end-July.

1/ Options

Total premium turnover recorded a 11.5% rise from July, with FF 6.9 billion. Contract volume was 4,503,754 contracts, up 1.7%.

Trading in index options grew 18.3%, with 929,185 contracts. Premiums in index options, at FF 5.7 billion, surged 23.1%.

The most active equity options were the short-term contract on France Telecom (658,631 contracts) and the long-term contract on Axa-UAP (40,722 contracts).

2/ Futures

Volume in index futures amounted 2,190,016 contracts, up 24.9% from July.

II- Matif fixed-income derivatives

A total of 2,991,462 interest-rate contracts were traded on Matif in August, against a backdrop of high market volatility.

Trade volumes for the Notional and Pibor contracts rose 40% and 52%, respectively, during the month.

The Notional contract rallied sharply to average 150,000 lots per day in the last week of August, and nearly 25,000 Pibor contracts were traded daily over the same period. Open interest was up 7.5% on the previous month, and practically steady year-on-year (+0.5% on August 1997).

Traders on their own account - négociateurs pour compte propre or NCPs - accounted for 23% of Matif trade volumes during the month.

Nearly 400 NSC screens are now in operation, in line with projections.

III- MATIF commodity futures

Trading in milling wheat futures rose a further 4% in August, after a very active month in July.

Trading in rapeseed futures fell back after record-breaking highs in July, but was nonetheless up a steep 89% on August 1997.

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