On 15 August 2018, the European Energy Exchange (EEX) is expanding the dairy trade with a liquid milk future. This makes EEX the first stock exchange in Europe to offer a liquid milk product. EEX already enables trading in futures on butter, skimmed milk powder and whey powder. The contract size is 25,000 kilograms. For the financial settlement of the product EEX calculates the "EEX European Liquid Milk Index". The index consists of equal weight milk prices from Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland. These are based on the prices of the "Milk Market Observatory" of the European Commission according to (EU) No 2017/1185 Article 12 (a) - Annex II.4 (a). "By expanding the product range, we are meeting the needs of the European dairy market and offering our customers even more precise protection against price risks," said Sascha Siegel, Head of Agricultural Commodities at EEX. "The price trend for butter, skimmed milk and whey powder in recent years shows that the European markets for dairy products are subject to large price fluctuations.We are convinced that the new product will be an attractive addition to risk management in the agricultural markets. "Since 11 May 2015, EEX has been offering trade in agricultural products. In 2017, 137,820 tonnes of goods equivalent were traded on the EEX derivatives market for dairy products. Thus, the volume exceeded the value of the previous year by 68 percent (2016: 82,050 tons of goods equivalent). EEX is the leading derivatives market for dairy products in Europe.
