The Tokyo Commodity Exchange announced today that average daily trading volume for November was 132,880 contracts, up 19% from October. TOCOM’s leading commodities saw substantial increases in volume: Gold was up 49.1% to 67,789 contracts and Crude Oil was up 16.3% to 5,594 contracts. The average daily volume recovered to levels last seen in April 2013. Volume on November 17 was 211,301 contracts, the highest since July 2013.
TOCOM Gold market participants were bearish early in the month in anticipation of a strong dollar and sluggish demand in China and India. Later prices rebounded on a weakening yen, Switzerland’s referendum on gold reserves as well as Russian central bank gold buying. Prices reached as high as 4,567 yen per gram on November 25, the highest in 18 months.
Crude Oil prices stayed on a downward trend throughout the month. Economic forecasts remained negative for Europe and China while expectations of surpluses in the physical market from increased shale oil production and Middle Eastern oil output. This was combined with declining expectations of OPEC production cutbacks. A weak yen curbed declines in TOCOM Crude Oil prices, but they still fell to 53,130 yen per liter, the lowest in 23 months, on November 28.
Open interest at the end of November 2014 for all listed products totaled 317,360 contracts, a decrease of 23,980 (-7.03%) from the end of October.
Click here for full details.