Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris – 14 July 2014– Euronext launched today on the Portuguese derivatives market three new futures contracts on CTT, Portucel and Semapa shares, in the context of its strategy to develop and promote the Group’s derivative Markets.
These three companies are constituents of the Portuguese benchmark, the PSI 20® index. CTT is the major postal operator in Portugal and a large logistics operator; its market capitalisation is EUR 1.04 billion. Semapa is an industry group which operates in the areas of forestry, pulp and paper, energy, environment and cement and has a market value of EUR 1.2 billion, whilst Portucel focuses its activity in the pulp and paper sector, as of last Friday its worth was last Friday EUR 2.5 billion.
As of today, 15 future contracts on Portuguese shares are available for trading on the Portuguese derivative market, including the PSI 20® Index futures contract. Trading volume and open interest of the PSI 20® Index future has doubled until the end of June 2014 to 103 thousand and 16 thousand contracts, respectively, in comparison with the same period of the previous year.
Early this year Euronext reviewed the Liquidity Provider contract on the PSI 20 ® Index Future, expanding the number of Liquidity Providers acting under this contract to five: BBVA Portugal, Banco Santander, SA (Spain), DRW Investments (UK), Société Générale (France) and Spire Limited (UK).
Luís Laginha de Sousa, CEO of Euronext Lisbon stated: “It is a great pleasure to announce the launch of three new futures contracts on stocks listed on Euronext Lisbon. This is an illustration of Euronext’s strategic plan to develop and grow each of its market places as well as its commitment to continuously work hand in hand with our clients and members to increase the number of listed instruments available, satisfying investors’ interest and need for such instruments”.
Euronext is taking the opportunity of this launch to amend the contract specifications of its existing inventory to harmonise them with the market standards and with the recently launched Single Stock Futures available on the other Euronext Derivatives Markets - Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. The main changes are: the tick size value changes from EUR 0.001 (EUR 0.10 per contract) to EUR 0.0001 (EUR 0.01 per contract), the minimum volume thresholds for Block Trades increases from 50 to 250 and two longer maturities are added.