ICE Futures U.S.

Products

With a vast product selection, our soft commodity markets offer leading producers in the agriculture industry a way to manage the price risk associated with crop production, weather patterns and changes in supply and demand.

Energy

With the broadest range of North American natural gas and power futures and options, our energy complex includes hundreds of contracts, such as Henry Hub natural gas and ERCOT and PJM power hubs.

Equity Derivatives

Providing market participants with exposure to price movements of benchmark indices through liquid futures contracts.

ICE Futures U.S. offers nearly 60 cross-currency futures contracts, including contracts on several emerging market currencies, and is home to the most widely recognized benchmark for the value of the U.S. dollar.

Metals

Our U.S. futures market for precious metals markets have been developed based on customer feedback to provide effective hedging solutions for bankers, jewelers, miners and retail traders.

U.S. Environmental

Environmental risk is an increasingly important component of business operations for energy intensive industries, and the trading of derivatives based on pollution reduction programs is a growing market.

Futures exchanges (referred to as Designated Contract Markets or “DCMs”) are regulated entities that may list for trading futures or option contracts based on all types of commodities. ICE Futures U.S. (“ICE”) is a registered DCM
The terms of each futures contract listed for trading on ICE and the rules governing trading and all other business conducted on ICE are set forth in the Exchange’s Rulebook which is published on the ICE website
All of the substantive rules contained in the ICE Rulebook must be submitted to the CFTC for review before they can become effective.
The Exchange Rules are designed to foster an open, competitive, and financially sound futures marketplace
DCMs are subject to comprehensive regulation by the CFTC and subject to the requirements of the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended (the “CEA”) and the regulations issued by the CFTC pursuant to the CEA
These requirements include conducting business in accordance with 23 core principles and the CFTC regulations that implement those core principles. CFTC staff perform regular reviews of each DCM's ongoing compliance with the core principles

DCMs may allow access to their trading facilities by many types of traders, including retail customers
Most participants in the futures markets are commercial or institutional commodities producers or consumers. A breakdown in markets can be found here
Most participants are commercial firms, such as producers or consumers of a commodity, hedging their exposure to commodity prices rising or falling. In this way “hedgers” use futures to manage their risk and reduce the risk of financial losses from price changes
Other participants include financial firms who use futures to hedge as well as profit from price changes in futures contracts. These firms play a critical role in providing liquidity to futures markets and two-way prices to allow commercial firms to offload risk

The Exchange introduced Interval Price Limits (“IPLs”) to its markets over a decade ago to prevent short term price spikes by stopping markets from moving too far in one direction too quickly. This functionality implements dynamic, intraday price ranges outside of which trading in a particular expiration of an Exchange Futures Contract may not take place for a brief period. If an order crosses the IPL level applicable to that particular futures contract (either the upper end of the price band or the lower end of the price band), it triggers a market hold for a pre-set period. The market is prevented from trading outside of the IPL level until the end of the hold period (which generally ranges between 5 and 30 seconds, depending on the product). During the hold period, trading may occur at or within the IPL level in the direction of the move as well as in the opposite price direction. Once the hold period ends, a new IPL is calculated and the market can continue in either direction. Sequential hold periods can be triggered during times of extreme price volatility. All metrics associated with IPLs--such as the price bands and duration of the hold periods--may be adjusted in connection with prevailing market conditions. In this manner, IPLs act as a circuit breaker that slows the rate at which the price of a contract can move in a particular direction.

To protect futures markets from excessive speculation that can cause unreasonable or unwarranted price fluctuations, the CEA authorizes the CFTC to impose limits on the size of speculative positions in futures markets. The Exchange also has established such limits along with Rules that require positions in different contracts to be aggregated and positions under common ownership or control to be aggregated for purposes of applying the limits. The Exchange has a comprehensive market surveillance program that monitors the positions of large traders, futures and physical market prices, relevant supply and demand data, and the trading activity of large market participants to foster orderly expirations and to support the hedging and price discovery functions of its markets.

Clearing House

ICE Clear U.S.

Established in 1915 as the New York Cotton Exchange Association, ICE Clear U.S. continues to build on more than a century of providing secure, capital-efficient counterparty risk management and post-trade services for ICE Futures U.S. agricultural, metals, currency, credit and equity index futures and options contracts.

ICE Clear Europe (Energy)

ICE Clear Europe was established in 2008 to provide central counterparty clearing services for ICE’s global energy markets. Today ICE Clear Europe provides secure, capital efficient clearing, risk management and physical delivery services for ICE markets across interest rate, equity index, agricultural and energy derivatives.

NYSE Liffe U.S. Historical Resources

Resources

Equity Derivatives: Growth, Diversification & Scale

With new volume records and all-time high open interest levels, ICE markets continue to lead across the equity derivatives space.

White Paper: Time Traveling the Natural Gas Market

North American natural gas is one of the most volatile publicly traded commodities in the world. This paper provides an overview of the physical gas market.

Market Innovation: ERIS Credit Futures

Using the ERIS methodology, we launched cash-settled futures contracts that replicate the economics of credit default swaps.

Learn more

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