On Friday Sept. 11, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) set a volume record of 67,989 contracts in its mini Russell 1000 contract. That more than tripled the previous record of 26,254 set on March 9 2009. The contract also set a record for open interest of 79,508 surpassing the previous record of 49,127 set on Dec. 16, 2008.
“We think this is the real deal,” says Ray McKenzie VP of U.S. futures sales for ICE, adding that many of the buy side customers they have been wooing for a long time are entering the market.
The Russell 1000 futures contract has never gathered huge volume but the index is widely used as a benchmark for investment professionals who would then use the highly correlated S&P 500 futures to hedge their cash positions. One of the main reasons Russell moved their futures products to ICE was because ICE pledged to promote their entire offering of indexes.