Micro E-mini Equity Index Futures Surpass 2 Billion Contracts Traded

CHICAGO, March 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that Micro E-mini Equity Index futures surpassed 2 billion contracts traded across all four indices on March 14.

Micro E-mini Equity Index futures became available for trading across four U.S. indices – S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Russell 2000 and Dow Jones Industrial Average – in May of 2019.

"At just over three years old, Micro E-mini Equity Index futures have quickly established themselves as some of the most actively traded and deeply liquid equity index products at CME Group," said Tim McCourt, Global Head of Equity and FX Products at CME Group. "At one-tenth the size of our benchmark E-mini equity index contracts, these micro-sized futures allow market participants to hedge or trade with enhanced flexibility around major market-moving events by executing trading strategies more nimbly and scaling index exposure up or down."

"For generations, the S&P 500 has been widely regarded as the best single gauge of the U.S. equity market. The first index-linked products such as exchange-traded funds, futures, and options in the U.S. were based on S&P Dow Jones Indices, and the index remains a leader by index-linked assets to this day," said Tim Brennan, Head of Capital Markets at S&P Dow Jones Indices. "We congratulate CME Group for reaching another significant market milestone which reinforces the ongoing strength of the S&P 500 and its highly liquid ecosystem and demonstrates the indispensable role independent and transparent benchmarks play in the capital markets."

"Nasdaq congratulates CME Group on reaching the 2 billion contracts trading milestone," said Sean Wasserman, Vice President and Global Head of Index & Advisor Solutions at Nasdaq. "Our partnership with CME Group is founded on developing innovative products to help investors manage risk and meet investment objectives based on the Nasdaq-100, representing the world's most innovative companies playing an important role in our society and economy."

"FTSE Russell congratulates CME Group on reaching this significant milestone of 2 billion contracts traded across its Micro E-mini derivatives complex," said Shawn Creighton, Director of Index Derivatives Solutions for FTSE Russell. "As our valued, long-term partner, we are proud to have supported CME Group in such an achievement and look forward to continuing our collaborative work on growing the Russell 2000 product suite. Since its introduction in 1984, the Russell 2000 Index has been widely viewed as the leading benchmark for small cap performance, serving as the basis of investable products. The Micro E-Mini Russell 2000 futures and options suite provides investors access to highly liquid and efficient U.S. small cap equity risk management tools."

At their launch, Micro E-mini Equity Index futures contracts became one of the most successful new product launches in CME Group's nearly 180-year history. Since then, due to the ongoing, strong support of clients, index partners, and the broker and intermediary communities, these contracts continue their tremendous growth trajectory. Additional highlights include:

• 2.73 million contracts in average daily volume in 2023-to-date
• 20% of volume occurs outside of U.S. trading hours
• More than 324 firms and 172,000 unique accounts have traded these contracts in the last year

For more information on Micro E-mini Equity Index products, please visit: www.cmegroup.com/microeminis.  

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE CME Group