WSE with Amercian certificate

The Warsaw Stock Exchange has been cleared by US regulators to make futures contracts based on the WIG20 index (listing 20 largest companies on the WSE) available to US investors, the bourse informed. The WSE may attract more automated trading companies which use arbitrage strategies to profit from fleeting disparities between the prices of the futures contracts and those of the underlying securities, said Grzegorz Zawada, vice president of WSE's management board. "Obtaining the certification confirms the significance of  the WIG20 index in our markets as the most important base index for derivatives," said Zawada. The certification process has been launched three years ago, he added. Futures contracts based on the WIG20 have been offered by the bourse since 1998. However, the certification by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission means the contracts will now be available to U.S. investors. About 50 percent of daily turnover on the WSE comes from international trading firms. The exchange has 55 member firms, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC Holdings Plc. The WIG20 index is a modified capitalization-weighted index of 20 Polish stocks which are listed on the main market. The index is the underlying instrument for futures transactions listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The base value was set to 1000 as of April 16, 1994.