Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is an American company that owns and operates financial markets, including commodity markets and stock markets. This stock market was established in 2000 in Atlanta, Georgia. The activities of this market include futures (future) transactions, cash transactions, central clearing houses and market services for over-the-counter transactions.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) manages futures trading in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. The cash transactions of this market include the New York Stock Exchange, the Archipelago Exchange of the New York Stock Exchange, and the New York Chicago Stock Exchange. The intercontinental exchange market has six major clearing houses, which are: Intercontinental Clearing Europe Exchange (ICE Clear Europe), Intercontinental Clearing Exchange America (ICE Clear US), Intercontinental Credit Clearing Exchange (ICE Clear Credit), Intercontinental Clearing Exchange Continental Clearing Netherlands (ICE Clear Netherlands), Intercontinental Clearing Singapore Exchange (ICE Clear Singapore) and Intercontinental Clearing Natural Gas Market Exchange (ICE Clear NGX). ICE, or Intercontinental Exchange Market, became a public company on November 16, 2005, and became the Russell 1000 Index on June 30, 2006.

Concepts and issues of intercontinental exchange

The Intercontinental Exchange was founded in May 2000 by Jeffrey C. Sprecher. One of the main reasons for creating the Intercontinental Exchange was that Jeffrey C. wanted to create a more transparent and efficient structure for trading energy commodities over the counter. Compared to businesses where the decision to enter and exit the market is made by humans, i.e. real traders, ICE or the intercontinental stock market has created a new structure that has the transparency in prices, better efficiency, more liquidity and lower costs.

When the intercontinental stock market was established, the main focus of this company was on the markets of energy products, especially crude oil, refined oil, natural gas and greenhouse gas. The activities and exchanges of this company were developed and expanded through the purchase and ownership of several other companies. They included different types of commodities, such as sugar, cotton, and coffee, as well as foreign cash transactions and index value futures.

Due to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, Sprecher created the Intercontinental Credit Clearing Exchange to act as a clearinghouse for the credit default swaps and OTC derivatives market, providing critical risk management services. The Intercontinental Credit Clearing Exchange was established in March 2009 and approved by the Federal Reserve as an accredited bank two years later, designated as a clearinghouse by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was the first to offer settlement services in OTC energy and credit derivatives markets. According to Intercontinental Exchange Market reports, in the first three months of 2022, the company settled more than $16.4 trillion in credit default transactions, which has grown by 9.7% compared to a year earlier.

Since the establishment of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2000, the growth and development of this company have been through the purchase of other exchanges. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) first bought the International Oil Exchange in 2001. In the next decade, in 2005, he purchased the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT); in 2008, he bought Creditex Group; and in 2010, he bought the Klima stock market. Intercontinental Exchange bought several other exchanges in the following decade, including New York Euronext (NYSE Euronext) in 2013, Interactive Data Company in 2015, and Chicago Stock Exchange in 2018. The latest purchase of Intercontinental Exchange was in 2020, with the purchase of Elie Mae and Black Knight in 2022.

According to the reports of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is the fourth largest stock exchange in the world after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME), B3 Brazil and the National Stock Exchange of India. After July 2020, the financial value of the intercontinental stock market will reach 53.88 billion dollars.