The Warsaw Stock Exchange has reduced operating fees for block trades in single-stock futures contracts effective of as the beginning of August 2012. For block trades where the volume exceeds 1,000 futures contracts, the operating fee is waived for that part of the trade which exceeds the volume of 1,000 contracts. The reduction applies to both client trades (made on the account of an investor or by an Exchange Members on own account) where the fee is PLN 0.34 per contract (equivalent to ca. EUR 0.08 at the fx rate of 4.1 EUR/PLN) and market maker trades where the fee is PLN 0.08 per contract (equivalent to EUR 0.02). This means that the maximum fee for a block trade in single-stock futures contracts is PLN 340 (equivalent to ca. EUR 83) for client trades and PLN 80 (equivalent to ca. EUR 20) for market maker trades. As a result, the bigger the volume of a block trade, the lower the operating cost of opening/closing a position per contract.
The same reduction of fees has been introduced by KDPW_CCP for registration of trades in single-stock futures contracts. The fee charged for the registration of a trade in more than 1,000 single-stock contracts is equal to the fee for 1,000 single-stock contracts. The reduction applies to both client trades and market maker trades.
The promotion aims to reduce operating costs of single-stock futures contracts for investors interested to trade in very big volumes of contracts. Thanks to the reduction, the WSE becomes one of the most attractive venues in Europe from the perspective of trading and clearing costs for investors trading in single-stock futures contracts.
The WSE currently lists 22 single-stock futures contracts. The underlying are shares of companies listed on the WSE’s Main Market, including 18 shares participating in WIG20 (the large-cap index). Block trades may be made between 09:00 and 17:50. The minimum volume of a block trade is 200 contracts.
It should also be noted that in addition to block trades, single-stock futures contracts are traded in continuous trading where the trading unit is one contract and liquidity is supported by many market makers.