EURO STOXX 50 Index futures made a debut in the South Korean bourse on Monday, and its first-day trading amounted to 30.9 billion won ($26 million) with most investors remaining bearish amid lingering jitters over Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

According to Korea Exchange (KRX), 1,142 contracts of EURO STOXX 50-based futures changed hands with trading volume reaching 30.9 billion won. The futures maturing in September ended at 2,730, down 1.37 percent from the underlying price of 2,768, following an 8.6 percent drop on Eurex in the previous session.

With the reverberating aftermath of the Britain’s fallout from the EU in the financial markets, market experts hope the latest derivative product can offer equity-linked securities (ELS) investors proper hedging opportunities.

Markus Georgi, Hong Kong office head of Eurex, also said in an interview with the Maeil Business Newspaper on Monday that EURO STOXX 50 Index futures on KRX performed better than expected despite worries over the Brexit vote result. He expected the daily volume of contracts to reach 10,000.

EURO STOXX 50 Index futures become available in the Korea’s main bourse after KRX, the operator of South Korea’s stock market, signed a deal with Eurex, owned by Deutsche Borse, to cross-list their derivatives products. EURO STOXX 50-based futures are the first overseas derivatives product trading in Korea, and Eurex will make trading in Mini KOSPI 200 Futures possible by this year. EURO STOXX 50 is the index based on 50 leading stocks from 12 eurozone countries, while Mini KOSPI 200 refers to the index based on 200 leading Korean stocks, but with the contract size that is one fifth of the actual KOSPI 200 futures index.

By Bae Mi-jung

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]