ICE/Russell ink exclusive deal
The Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) and Russell Investment Group have signed an exclusive licensing agreement for futures and options on futures for all of Russell’s U.S. based indexes including the Russell 1000 Index, Russell 2000 Index, Russell 3000 Index and related value and growth indexes.
The decision reverses Russell’s strategy of licensing its indexes to multiple exchanges and letting them fight over liquidity. Kelly Haughton, strategic director for Russell Indexes, says they decided to stop multiple listing and now believe this is a better way to go.
While the majority of open interest in the Russell 1000 Index futures contract is with ICE affiliate New York Board of Trade (Nybot), the most successful of all the futures contracts based on Russell Indexes is the E-mini 2000, which has an average daily volume of approximately 200,000 contracts and is listed at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
Haughton says the transition into exclusive listing will take months, but eventually ICE will be the exclusive home for Russell 2000 futures. “We feel ICE will be a strong advocate for our product line, we have been looking for the best way to have a successful 1000 contract.”
The Russell 2000 is the small-cap benchmark, while the 1000 is a large-cap index highly correlated to the S&P 500 listed at the CME. While more institutional money is benchmarked to the Russell 1000 than the S&P 500, the vast majority of institutional traders use the S&P for hedging.
“Russell has been pleased with our relationship with the CME and the Russell 2000 has grown, but we decided to go with ICE to grow our entire family of indexes,” Haughton says.
The recently announced Volatility futures contract on the Russell 2000 index to be listed at the CBOE Futures Exchange will not be affected.