(Vienna) With a start date of today, Wiener Börse will be calculating the RDXxt (Russian Depositary Index Extended), which tracks the 15 largest Russian depositary receipts (DRs) traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). As announced on February 8, Wiener Börse has acquired the world’s largest futures exchange, Eurex, as a new customer for this index. Eurex will issue USD derivatives on Russian underlying instruments as of 23 April 2007. For the first time, it will be possible to trade emerging markets derivatives through Eurex. The derivatives will be traded in USD – which is also a first at Eurex.
“We are delighted to be launcing RDXxt today into our family of Central and Eastern European indices,” commented Michael Buhl, joint CEO of Wiener Börse. “Our exchange is one of the leading providers of indices for the Russian market. The RDXxt is specially designed for the futures market and US investors”
With the launch of the RDXxt, Wiener Börse now calculates and publishes 21 indices in total, 15 of which are for Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The index expertise of Wiener Börse is recognized far beyond Austria’s national borders and the number of index customers is growing fast: In 2006 Wiener Börse acquired 25 new customers from 13 countries. In total Wiener Börse has over 80 index customers – including international investment banks such as JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.
The RDXxt is calculated by Wiener Börse according to a proven method applied to its other indices: It is a capitalization-weighted price index and is made up of at least 15 most traded ADRs/GDRs of Russian blue chip stocks. The ADRs/GDRs are continuously traded at LSE on IOB. At the time of launch of the RDXxt, the index’s composition includes Lukoil, Rosneft, Gazprom and Rostelekom. Calculated in USD and EUR and disseminated in real-time by Wiener Börse, the RDXxt is designed as a tradable index to be used as underlying for standardized derivatives (futures & options) as well as for ETFs and other structured products. The calculation parameters are reviewed on a quarterly basis and any changes to the composition of the index are carried out bi-annually in March and September. The starting value of the RDXxt was defined at 1,000 index points on 3 January 2005.