The following information serves to provide clarification with regard to the prohibitions on establishing and increasing net short positions imposed by the Spanish CNMV on 17 March 2020, the Italian CONSOB on 18 March 2020, the French AMF on 18 March 2020, the Belgian FMSA on 18 March 2020, the Greek HCMC on 18 March 2020 and the Austrian FMA on 18 March 2020:
- Instruments related to the indices Euro STOXX 50®, STOXX® Europe 600, MSCI Europe and MSCI EMU are exempt from the short-selling prohibitions; trading in these instruments is therefore possible and is not covered by the prohibitions.
This is because the prohibitions imposed with regard to establishing and increasing net short positions apply to all shares in the relevant markets, as well as to derivative instruments, which under the EU Short Selling Regulation must be taken into account in the calculation of net short positions. However, the restrictions apply to index-related instruments only if the shares covered by the prohibitions exceed the respective defined thresholds expressed as a percentage of their index weighting. This is not the case for instruments related to Euro STOXX 50®, STOXX® Europe 600, MSCI Europe and MSCI EMU.
- Instruments related to the index Euro STOXX® Banks are also exempt from the short-selling prohibitions; trading in these instruments is therefore possible and is not covered by the prohibitions.
This is because BaFin is the competent supervisory authority for these instruments; other authorities in the EU therefore cannot include these instruments in their short-selling measures without BaFin’s consent
Source: BaFin
https://twitter.com/FIAEPTA/status/1240702764872691712
Eurex statement:
Please note that with a view to index products traded on Eurex, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has clarified on its webpage the scope of the short selling bans introduced in March 2020 by several European national authorities.
As explicitly stated by BaFin the short selling bans do not apply to derivatives on the Euro STOXX 50®, STOXX® Europe 600, MSCI Europe, MSCI EMU and Euro STOXX® Banks. Therefore, trading of these products on Eurex is not affected by the imposed restrictions on short selling.
