Intercontinental Exchange has successfully completed the Liffe futures and options transition to ICE Futures Europe.
The final phase of the Liffe transition was completed with the equity derivatives complex transferring to the ICE platform, following the previous migrations of European interest rate derivatives and soft commodity contracts.
The Liffe equity derivative contracts that were migrated to the ICE platform on November 17 include futures and options on the FTSE 100 Index, futures contracts on the MSCI World and MSCI Europe Indices, as well as a comprehensive range of Single Stock Futures, Dividend Adjusted Stock Futures and Individual Equity Options.
With European equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives and soft commodities now listed on the widely distributed and feature rich ICE trading platform, these contracts can now be traded side by side on WebICE with ICE’s flagship US MSCI and Russell index contracts, as well as with the Eurodollar and GCF Repo futures contracts and the US soft commodity complex.
David Peniket, President and COO, ICE Futures Europe, says: "ICE would like to thank our customers and the Liffe trading community for their support during the migration of the Liffe softs, interest rates and equity derivatives contracts to the ICE trading platform and to ICE Futures Europe. We are proud of Liffe’s legacy and are conscious of our responsibility as we bring two of the world’s leading derivatives markets together on a globally distributed platform.
“The Liffe contracts we have transitioned now have the support of ICE’s world-class trading and clearing capabilities. ICE is committed to further developing these markets; we look forward to working closely with our customers to ensure that we continue to meet their evolving trading and clearing requirements.”
The ICE trading platform features state-of-the art technology and functionality, including trading applications such as the WebICE trading front end, ICE mobile, ICE Chat and ICE Options Analytics.
The transition of Liffe contracts to the ICE platform provides:
• Retention of a pro-rata, allocation-based matching model for interest rate futures markets;
• Enhanced wash-trade prevention protections, including ICE’s self-trade prevention functionality; and
• Improved pre-trade risk management technology, interval price limit circuit breakers and sophisticated messaging policies to maintain highly efficient, orderly and reliable markets
ICE Futures Europe is now the largest derivatives exchange in London by traded volume.
The clearing transition of the Liffe market to ICE Clear Europe was completed in July 2013. All European commodity derivatives, interest rate derivatives and equity derivatives contracts, previously listed at Liffe, will continue to be cleared at ICE Clear Europe.