ICE Futures U.S.(TM), a leading regulated U.S. futures exchange for global agricultural, equity index and currency markets, today announced a new exchange-wide electronic daily volume record and a fourth consecutive day of volume and open interest records for its mini Russell 2000(R) Index futures contract, leading into the Friday, September 19, transition to exclusive trading on ICE. On Thursday, September 11, exchange-wide electronic volume reached a new daily high of 531,743 contracts, surpassing by 20% the previous record established on June 11, 2008, of 444,095 contracts. Also on Thursday, the mini Russell 2000 futures contract posted daily volume of 272,756, surpassing by 81% the prior record set on September 10 of 150,883 contracts.
Open interest in the mini and full-size Russell 2000 futures increased from 1,377 contracts at January 1, 2008 to 355,439 contracts as of September 11, based on mini equivalents.
Ray McKenzie, Vice President of Product Sales for ICE Futures U.S., noted: "We've been very pleased with the steady growth in volume and open interest in the Russell Index futures on ICE as the final transition approaches. We're receiving positive feedback from the index trading community, and we've seen an influx of many new participants each day this month."
On September 19, Russell Index futures and options on futures contracts will for the first time trade exclusively on ICE. Over $4.4 trillion in assets and more than 99% of small cap institutional assets are benchmarked to Russell indexes.
Free real-time market data for the mini Russell 2000 index futures contract is now available via the ICE website at www.theice.com. Daily volume in the mini Russell 2000 futures contract is published on ICE's homepage.
