Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ & GLOSSARY

For MEX Terminal members to help them understand function, terms and processes.

What is a benchmark/ index?

A benchmark is the market net retail price for a basket of underlying asset groups that conform to the characteristics and quality specifications laid down by AEM.

What categories of benchmarks exist?

All our benchmarks within our benchmark family (MOBAB) are calculated according to our benchmark methodology. We have 4 main categories of benchmark.

1. Asset - Groups of assets used for mobility

2. Brand - Brand groups of assets of top 200 assets by population

3. Technology - Technology groups of assets of top 200 assets by population

4. Sustainability - CO2 groups of assets of top 200 assets by population

What price am I looking at?

You are seeing the algorithmic market net retail price in the currency for the relevant market. This price excludes all sales taxes and registration taxes.

What volume am I looking at?

You are seeing the total volume depth of the market for your asset for the relevant time period.

What is volatility?

It is the indicator for the risk of holding an asset for 1 month or 21 trading days.

As with Standard and Poors, we calculate daily price changes for each benchmark compared to the previous day. The volatility is the % deviation of today today compared to the average deviation over the last 21 days.

What is MY PERFORMANCE?

If you have a PRO user account you can upload your own assets and match them to available benchmarks. If a suitable benchmark is not available you can request one.

When you successfully upload and match your asset you will be able to compare the performance of your asset with that of the benchmark on the revenue level. SO there is no need for sensitive book value information. You can easily follow the performance of your buying and selling teams.

Specifically, your performance is measured as follows: The difference between your target retail price on your date of acquisition and the net retail price you sold for, COMPARED to the difference in the market benchmark on the same dates. If you yielded more on your asset than the benchmark you have out performed the overall market - WELL DONE.

What is your Virtual Futures Market?

If you have a PRO account you can trade futures contracts for benchmark assets.

A futures contract for a benchmark asset is a contract agreed today to buy or sell this asset at a future date for a price agreed with another market participant.

Each day the value of the benchmark asset is updated according to the development of the underlying market and the buyer and seller are nominally credited or debited with the gains and losses of the day.

At the expiry date of the contract the final price of the benchmark asset is marked and the buyer and seller are finally credited or debited with the gains and losses of the day.

These contracts are called derivatives because they are derived from the value of the underlying assets and not the assets themselves. These contracts are cash settled, which means no good change hands.

Why would you want to do this?

The future value of a product may be material to your business. For example if you buy a car today (Dealer Group/ Trader), you hope to sell it in 30, 60 or 90 days at a price higher than your price of acquisition. Market prices for some cars are highly volatile, if the market price for your car were to drop from the level that you expect due to unforeseen developments - such as a sudden release of supply from a rental/ lease company or OEM, a new tax on diesel models, changes to competitor offerings, a change to OEM discount policies at the end of the quarter, changes to VAT or other government regulations... you may make a significant loss, or gain.

By selling or buying a contract for the future value you lock in this value. Any gain you make from this contract you can use to offset a loss from your trading activity. Equally a loss on this asset would mean you made trading gains on your underlying assets. You thus INSURE your risk at the level of your contracted future value.

Currently this is a virtual market and no real money exchanges hands.

What does the letter mean at the end of the FUTURES contract

A FUTURES contract has a specific code for example FER.488.1.US.302.Z.2021. At the end of the code, immediately before the year that the contract expires, you can find a letter which represents the month that the contract expires. In this example "Z", this refers to contracts with expiry in December, normally the final trading day of the month.

Comprehensive list of month codes;

• January – F

• February – G

• March – H

• April – J

• May – K

• June – M

• July – N

• August – Q

• September – U

• October – V

• November – X

• December – Z

COMPREHENSIVE GLOSSARY

Amount (contracts)	The amount of contracts entered in a futures contract order.
Contract (Long Code)	Currently the 'Order ID'
Contract (Matched) Price	The price at which a BUY contract matched a SELL contract and is now the contract settlement price at expiry
Contract Type: New/Rolled	Identifies whether that specific contract is a new contract or a contract created after 'rolling' forward the position.
Initial Margin	The initial margin for all contracts is 30%; notional amount of the order x 30%
Limit Price	Identifies the price at which a LMT order can be executed; for example, BUY LMT orders can only be executed at or below the limit price and SELL LMT orders can only be executed at or above the limit price.
Maintenance Margin	The maintenance margin for all matched contracts is 25%; notional amount of the contract x 25%
Margin State (Green, Yellow, Red)	Identifies whether the margin for the matched contract is GREEN (ok), YELLOW (between 25-30%) & RED (below 25%, account restricted - MARGIN CALL)
Market	The market from which the benchmark data was derived; for example: UK, GER, US
Matched Order ID (Admin only)	Identifies the corresponding matched order ID; for example, the matched order ID for a buy or is the corresponding matched sell order ID and vice versa
Notional Amount: Contract (matched)	The total value of one side of a matched contract; amount of contracts x 10 x Contract Price
Notional Amount: Order	The total value of the order; amount of contracts x 10 x LMT or MKT price
Order Entered: Date/Time	Identifies the date and time that an order was entered
Order ID	An Order ID is the number system that AEM uses to identify each individual order, it is never duplicated nor repeated.
Order Matched: Date/Time (Admin only)	Identifies the date and time that a contract was matched
Prior Order ID	Identifies the previous order from which the current 'rolled' order derived.
Side (B/S)	Identifies whether the order for that specific contract is a BUY or SELL order
State	Identifies the state of the contract on the exchange
TIF: GTC, GTD, IOC	Time in Force designation; identifies the length of time that a live (pending) unmatched order is live on the exchange for.