The CEE Derivatives Forum 2008, Central and Eastern Europe’s biggest derivative and structured instruments conference featuring Polish and international speakers and guests, has opened in the head office of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
WSE President Ludwik Sobolewski welcomed the CEE Derivatives Forum participants and stressed that the derivatives market is a very important segment of the WSE. “We do everything possible to make sure that investors can diversify their investment portfolios. We constantly extend the offer of derivative instruments available on the WSE. We offer opportunities of investment in products based on underlying instruments traded on the WSE and other instruments such as natural resources,” said Ludwik Sobolewski.
In the first day of the Forum, Professor Andrzej S?awi?ski, Member of the Polish Monetary Policy Council, delivered a keynote address about the causes of the current situation on the global financial markets. During the debate, representatives of Polish financial institutions discussed the impact of the global financial crisis on the Polish derivative instruments market. The participants of the CEE Derivatives Forum were introduced to derivatives markets of other countries. At a debate entitled “How They Do It In Other Markets”, representatives of the International Securities Exchange, the Hungarian Exchange, the Romanian Exchange Sibex, the Turdex market of Turkey and the Options Industry Council shared their experience in derivatives markets.
The second day of the Forum (21 November) featured discussions and presentations on various topics including investment in volatile financial markets, currency futures contracts, projecting market volatility, option strategies, and options trading.
The Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of the fastest growing derivative instruments markets in Europe and the largest derivatives market in the region. After Q1-3 2008, the WSE kept its high fourth position in Europe by the volume of trading in index futures contracts, ahead of markets like Italy, Spain or Norway.
The first derivatives conference was held in 1999, a year after the WSE introduced the first derivative instrument: WIG20 index futures. Organised annually, the forum has remained very popular with participants. It has offered a platform for exchange of experience and know-how about derivatives.
Today, when the WSE derivative instruments market is the most dynamically growing market in Central and Eastern Europe, the conference has become an international event. It is held for the second time under the name of Central and Eastern European Derivatives Forum and offers the opportunity to exchange information with participants of different exchanges.
This year’s CEE Derivatives Forum has special importance to the WSE: WIG20 index futures were introduced to exchange trading 10 years ago (16 January 1998) and WIG20 options were introduced 5 years ago (22 September 2003); the are the two major derivative instruments traded on the WSE.