The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) has announced that average daily volume for September 2016 was 85,496 contracts, down 3.7% MoM. Volume for TOCOM’s largest contracts was mixed; Dubai Crude Oil was up 5.5% to 19,849 contracts and Rubber was up 6.4% to 6,567 contracts while Gold Standard decreased 13.7% to 24,608 contracts.
TOCOM Dubai Crude Oil traded heavily on speculation that whether OPEC would reduce production to curb worldwide supply.
Precious Metals markets stagnated in September. The FOMC’s decision on the interest rates and a Bank of Japan policy shift led the market to take wait-and-see approach. The Japanese yen was range-bound, trading between 100-103 JPY/USD, which reduced trading in precious metals.
TOCOM has successfully launched the new trading system on the Japan Exchange Group (JPX) derivatives platform on September 20. At the same time, the Exchange relaunched Gold Options with updated contract specifications. Total volume for the first 8 business days was 1,326 contracts (166 contracts average daily volume).
At the end of September, open interest for all products was 558,641 contracts, an increase of 29,348 (5.54%) from the end of August. This is the highest level of open interst since the July 2007 mark of 594,672 contracts.
Monthly Trading Volume by Session – Jan 2011- September 2016
September 2016 monthly night session volume: 598,301 contracts (35.0% of total volume)
TOCOM has announced on September 8 that the Gold Rolling Spot Futures contract has been recognized by the Financial Supervisory Commission of Taiwan (FSC) as “eligible foreign futures” for Taiwanese traders.
Since Gold Rolling Spot launched in May 2015 trading volume and open interest has steadily increased to become one of the most actively traded commodities on the Exchange. In August, monthly volume accounted 15.6 percent of the Exchange’s total volume. At the end of the month open interest was over 110,000 contracts.
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