001206noveng

At the end of November the number of companies listed on the markets of Borsa Italiana hit an all-time high of 289 (238 Borsa, 36 Nuovo Mercato, 15 Mercato Ristretto), with a capitalisation of 852 billion euro, equivalent to 73.4% of GDP.

There were 6 new entries in November, 4 in the Borsa (Centrale del Latte Torino, Tod's, Risanamento Napoli and Cattolica Assicurazioni) and 2 on the Nuovo Mercato (Novuspharma and Fidia), bringing the total number of new entries in the year 2000 (not including transfers between markets) to 41, a number higher not only than the 36 of last year but also higher than the 39 of the boom year 1986.

With a daily average of more than 217,000 contracts worth 3.49 billion euro (Borsa stocks 3,427 million euro, Nuovo Mercato stocks 63 million euro, Mercato Ristretto stocks 3 million euro), November was the fourth highest month in terms of stock trades after February (5.12 billion euro), March (4.67) and January (3.50).

The concentration of trades in MIB30 stocks fell from 80.4% in October to 78.2% in November. The share of Midex stocks rose from 3.7% to 4.1%.

Trades in covered warrants rose to a daily average of 40,500 contracts worth 156 million euro, making November the third most liquid month of the year.

As regards Trading After Hours, November confirmed the rise in liquidity recorded in October, with a daily average of 7,600 contracts with a turnover of 32.2 million euro.

On the equity derivative market (IDEM), November showed a new all-time high in traded standard contracts (a daily average of 60,700, compared with the previous high of 60,000 in January). This was due to the extremely high growth in stock option trades, with a daily average of 31,100 standard contracts (another record for the category). In particular, stock option contracts accounted for more than 50% of contracts traded on the entire IDEM.

Index option volumes remained stable with an average of 11,100 contracts per day, as did MIB30 futures with 15,100 standard contracts per day.

The miniFIB, the new futures contract that began trading on 3 July this year, rose to a daily average of 3,400 standard contracts.

Milan, 6 December 2000