In August, the highest monthly turnover ever was cleared through the Nordic
Exchange Stockholm. The daily turnover in FRAs amounted to 75 billion SEK in
August, and to date, the total turnover this year has amounted to 10,000 billion
SEK. That is more than the total turnover for all of last year. The daily
turnover in treasury bills, another segment of the short fixed income market,
has however decreased slightly in recent years and amounted to 9 billion SEK in
August.
”The increase on the FRA market compared to the slowdown of the market for
treasury bills is a way for the market to respond to a decreasing national
debt,” says Jukka Ruuska, President of Nordic Marketplaces at OMX. “Furthermore,
it is even more attractive to trade straightforward and transparent derivatives
against a central counterparty with the current credit uncertainty.”
Turnover in Forward Rate Agreements, billion SEK
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| | 2006 | 2007 |
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| January | 547 | 889 |
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| February | 989 | 1,526 |
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| March | 770 | 1,001 |
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| April | 854 | 1,071 |
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| May | 523 | 1,340 |
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| June | 626 | 1,533 |
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| July | 351 | 748 |
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| August | 853 | 1,648 |
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Uncertainty on global financial markets has especially changed expectations on
the Swedish central bank's monetary policy and led to extensive trade in FRAs.
Trading in FRAs has at the same time increased over a longer period of time, due
to a large extent to structural factors such as increased investor focus on
central bank policies in connection to a reduced supply of treasury bills.
For more information, please contact
Jonas Rodny, OMX +46 (0)8 405 72 67
Erik Thedéen, OMX +46 (0)8 405 70 68
About OMX | OMX is a leading expert in the exchange industry. The common
offering from OMX Nordic Exchange in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland,
Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, comprises over 800 companies including its
alternative market First North. OMX provides technology to over 60 exchanges,
clearing organizations and central securities depositories in over 50 countries.
OMX is a Nordic Large Cap company in the Financials sector on the OMX Nordic
Exchange. For more information, please visit www.omxgroup.com.
