The CME has recently entered into an exclusive agreement that will return Russell products from ICE back to CME. Blue Trading Systems attended a recent gathering sponsored by FTSE Russell to mark this important expansion of equity index products offered by CME Group. Exchanges, regulators, proprietary trading firms and technology providers met informally to discuss the transition.
“Offering the Russell 2000® Index at CME Group to trade alongside our suite of equity index benchmarks provides our customers greater capital and risk management efficiencies,” said Tim McCourt, CME Group’s Global Head of Equity Products. “We’re pleased to provide a powerful tool for investors seeking to manage risk in the small-cap segment.”
On July 10, 2017, the FTSE Russell Index Futures products returned to trading at the CME with an average daily volume of about 14,000 contracts (with 13,517 futures and 433 options traded daily). As of last week, their largest trading volume since the launch was Thursday, August 17 with 33,533 E-mini Russell 2000 futures contracts traded.
“Volatility spiked on Thursday the 17th during the day and customers came to the CME Group to manage risk where they can access equity indices on a single platform,” said McCourt “We’re excited to offer a more cost effective opportunity for global exposure using futures and options, with margin offsets of up to 70% against the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones indices.”
“We are pleased to bring the Russell US index products back to the CME Group offering an efficient hedge to cash index options,” said Sean Smith, Managing Director of Derivatives Licensing at FTSE Russell. “We continue to work together with all our strategic partners to help deliver innovative Index products to the market. We want to thank everyone who came out to mark this transition.”
Blue Trading Systems was honored to be part of the conversation, and looks forward to supporting Russell index options traders through this transition. We invite you to see how BTS Edge can help you identify opportunities and manage and diversify risk in this small cap segment.