IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE), the leading electronic energy marketplace and soft commodity exchange, today announced that electronic trading in key index futures contracts offered by the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) will begin on Friday, June 15, 2007. The contracts include the U.S. Dollar Index(R) (USDX) and the Russell 1000(R) full-size and mini-sized indexes listed at NYBOT. Trading hours are from 8:00 p.m. ET through 4:15 p.m. ET each trading day. These futures contracts, as well as options on these futures, currently trade in the NYBOT floor-based markets.
The products have been available since March 16 in a test environment to allow independent software vendors (ISVs), market data vendors, brokers, algorithmic traders and other registered market participants time to complete system connectivity and functionality testing.
"The addition of these contracts to the ICE electronic trading platform is an important step in unlocking the value of these benchmark products," said Tom Farley, NYBOT President and Chief Operating Officer. "We've seen strong interest in trading these index products electronically. The Dollar Index is a widely referenced benchmark for global currency moves relative to the U.S. Dollar, and the Russell 1000(R) contract is an attractive tool for managing exposure to the U.S. stock market. These are just two of the new electronic trading opportunities in financial products that we will be offering over the next few months."
ICE successfully introduced side-by-side trading for NYBOT's soft commodity contracts on February 2, 2007. Contracts offered include futures based on cocoa, coffee, cotton, orange juice and sugar. Today, approximately 60% of NYBOT's soft commodity futures contracts are traded electronically on the ICE platform.
About IntercontinentalExchange
IntercontinentalExchange(R) (NYSE: ICE) operates the leading global, electronic marketplace for trading both futures and OTC energy contracts and the leading soft commodity exchange. ICE's markets offer access to a range of contracts based on crude oil and refined products, natural gas, power and emissions, as well as agricultural commodities including cocoa, coffee, cotton, ethanol, orange juice, wood pulp and sugar, in addition to currency and index futures and options. ICE(R) conducts its energy futures markets through its U.K. regulated London-based subsidiary, ICE Futures, Europe's leading energy exchange. ICE Futures offers liquid markets in the world's leading oil benchmarks, Brent Crude futures and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude futures, trading nearly half of the world's global crude futures by volume of commodity traded. ICE conducts its agricultural commodity futures and options markets through its U.S. regulated subsidiary, the New York Board of Trade(R). For more than a century, the NYBOT(R) has provided global markets for food, fiber and financial products. ICE was added to the Russell 1000(R) Index on June 30, 2006. Headquartered in Atlanta, ICE also has offices in Calgary, Chicago, Houston, London, New York and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.theice.com and www.nybot.com.