NYSE Euronext has announced that NextTrack, Euronext's dedicated product segment for trackers/exchange traded funds, is now the European leader in terms of order book turnover, according t

NYSE Euronext has announced that NextTrack, Euronext's dedicated product segment for trackers/exchange traded funds, is now the European leader in terms of order book turnover, according to the Federation of European Securities Exchanges's statistics and a Deutsche Bank study.

In 2007, a daily average turnover of EUR350m, an increase of 170 per cent year-on-year, was traded on NextTrack. The assets under management of the Euronext -listed ETFs amounted to EUR68.42bn at end December 2007 (+55 per cent year on year).

'ETFs are attractive investment products for all types of investors as they are flexible, transparent and cost efficient,' comments Pedro Fernandes, NYSE Euronext head of trackers and ETF development Europe.

 'They trade like a share and are accessible through financial intermediaries.  They are transparent since they are listed on a regulated market and replicate transparent indices. Finally, they are cost- efficient because in one transaction they allow investors to trade all components of the underlying index'.

Fernandes adds, 'ETFs are quite economical: investors are not charged any entry or exit fees and the management fees are relatively low. They also give investors exposure to various types of assets and market conditions.'

Over the past three years, the number of ETFs traded on NextTrack has quintupled, rising from 53 in January 2005 to 265 today. The range of underlying assets has been rapidly extended as well, with funds now offering exposure to more than 185 different indices.

In April 2007, Euronext implemented a new classification for ETFs with 4 main segments, giving greater transparency to the Euronext ETF offer: equity-market ETFs, commodity-market ETFs, strategy-index ETFs and active ETFs.