Moves nearly the same as ER2, CME EMINI S&P 400 MIDCAP FUT MARCH volume = 882,372 Or 44,119 per trading day. Better than 2500 per day. 21% increase in volume from 1 year ago. Still a long way from CME E-RUSS 2000 FUT MARCH # 7,157,542 volume.
Yes, it's now apparent the CME is foresaking the ER2 for the midcap and/or small cap 400 indices. Also, apparent: ICE will not be a viable competitor to the monstrous CME. So much for competition Hruska !
Listen, this is total bullshit. Sharon Hruska-Brown, former CFTC chairperson/commissioner is responsible here. She approved of the CME/CBOT merger. And on what grounds ? MORE COMPETITION ? Where did she get her economics degree ? China perhaps. The day after the merger, the CME immediately stopped the free FTP downloads of their time-and-sales data of the eminis. Then they made it a "pay-only" service. Love that competition !
Some volume will move to ICE once the contract trades there exclusively. In fact, volume, while still anemic, is already increasing. However, there is no cross-margining between CME and ICE contracts. This is a serious disadvantage for traders who want to play the ES-TF spread, for example. As long as this issue isn't "fixed", the new Russel 2000 contract on ICE will not reach the volume figures of the old one. But I doubt there is any reason for CME to to that.