1995, the closing bells rang for the last time on the trading floors, ending an era spanning more than a century. They were superseded with the world's first automated trading, clearing and settlement system. After the international financial markets recovered from the 1997/1998 Asian crisis and the 1998 Russian crisis, there was a period of two years of lasting bull market from October 1998. This bull market was mainly driven by the new economy boom and transition of this time. However, the boom was more limited on Swiss stock indices, since they are dominated by pharmaceutical, food and financial values, while Internet companies and technology companies play only a secondary role. Hence, it was only in May 2000 that the Swiss Performance Index crossed again the peak of 5,237 points that it had reached before the Russian crisis. It reached its then all-time high of 5,770 points on 23 August 2000. The bursting of the dot-com bubble sent stock prices down worldwide, and did not spare Swiss stock indices. The SPI entered a bear market. It had lost more than 20% from its previous peak by 22 March 2001, on which day it reached a temporary bottom. After a short recovery phase, the SPI started to erode continuously from May 2001. The 9/11 attacks accelerated this evolution, started with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, further. The SPI reached its bottom of 2,603 points one and a half years later, on 12 March 2003, at the peak of the SARS-epidemic and the Iraq war. SIX Group In May 2007, the SWX Group, the SIS Group and Telekurs Group announced their merger to a new holding called Swiss Financial Market Services AG. The merger was official in 2008 and the new company was renamed to SIX Group AG. SWX Swiss Exchange was renamed to SIX Swiss Exchange in the same year. Subsidiaries and acquisitions Eurex From 1998 to 2012, SIX Swiss Exchange owned 15% of Eurex, the world's second largest futures and derivatives exchange, after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, along with its German partner Deutsche Börse (85%). Deutsche Börse purchased the 15% ownership from SIX Swiss Exchange in 2012, becoming its sole owner. SWX Europe SWX Swiss Exchange, as was its new name since 1999, acquired the stock exchange platform Tradepoint, renamed as Virt-x, for the trading of 32 Swiss bluechip stocks, regulated by the British Financial Services Authority. The new