Liffe adds more Universal Stock Future contracts

The London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe) is introducing 30 new Universal Stock Futures (USFs), to be available for trading from October 31. The new contracts will push the total number of Liffe's USFs to 95, giving them a broad coverage of Europe's major equity indexes.

The new contracts include listings in three new sectors – chemical, food/beverages and utilities – increasing the scope of sector-based hedging for investors.

A Liffe spokesperson said the USFs have been welcomed by member firms, "The big advantage of USFs is that you are getting access to international stocks under one regulatory regime... this removes the problem of going to different stock exchanges." However, the exchange admitted that the USF is a new product and there is still a lot of information to be gathered on it.

Liffe's joint venture with Nasdaq to market USFs in the US is still awaiting approval from the US regulators. Congress has set December 21 as the date to begin trading in this instrument.

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