NYSE Liffe, the European derivatives business of NYSE Euronext, is to list futures contracts on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index on its wholesale derivatives service, Bclear.

The futures contract will be launched on 1 October 2012.

The Russell Europe SMID 300 Index contains the 300 most rapidly tradable constituents from the small- and mid-cap (SMID cap) opportunity set in developed European markets and was designed with considerable input from the trading community to ensure ease of use in the trading environment. It also represents a low implementation cost alternative to existing indexes.

The index is the first of its kind and is unique in that it is built to minimise the length of time it takes to trade a basket of stocks that replicates the index constituents and their weights.

“With the launch of this futures contract on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index we are providing our customers with a unique product to access Europe’s small and mid-cap companies,” says Ade Cordell (pictured), executive director of equity derivatives, NYSE Liffe. “Launching the futures contract on our innovative and award winning Bclear service highlights our continuing commitment to meeting the needs of our customers.”

“We are very excited that NYSE Liffe is launching futures on the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index, a highly tradable index of small- and mid-cap European stocks,” says Scott Stark, head of Russell Indexes Europe. “We designed our new index to meet a clear need in the marketplace, and are pleased we are already seeing a strong acceptance.”

During the development process for the Russell Europe SMID 300 Index, Russell consulted with a number of large financial institutions in Europe including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS.