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IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE), the leading electronic energy marketplace and soft commodity exchange, today announced that it will deploy a new matching engine in its over-the-counter (OTC) Henry Hub natural gas markets for the trade date of Friday, March 30. ICE previously announced that it was working toward the completion of several technology initiatives relating to increased speed, capacity and functionality for both its futures and over-the-counter technology.
The new OTC matching engine will allow the Henry Hub market to take advantage of advanced features recently developed for ICE’s futures markets, including rapid execution speeds, reduced bandwidth requirements and enhanced spreading functionality. The enhanced OTC spread-implication functionality is designed to improve the experience for traders who trade longer-dated contracts by facilitating liquidity in back-month contracts. The implied spread functionality, which has been deployed in ICE Futures’ markets, is able to generate long-chained multi-legged spread prices. The reduced bandwidth requirements are intended to improve quality of access via the Internet and to reduce costs for those utilizing private network lines. The OTC matching engine performance upgrades are also expected to allow for the expansion of qualified algorithmic, proprietary and other speed-sensitive traders into ICE’s OTC markets. The new matching engine retains existing capabilities that allow each participant to indicate a preference for bilateral or cleared OTC trade execution.
In preparation for the introduction of the new Henry Hub matching engine, ICE last week revised its Error Trade Policy. More information on the policy is available on the ICE website at ICE OTC Error Trade Policy.
