The Tokyo Commodity Exchange announced today that average daily tradingvolume for May was 73,882 contracts, down 0.2% from April. TOCOM’s leading commodities had lower volume: Gold was down 1.5% to 27,695 contracts and Rubber fell 7.9% to 9,483. This slightly outweighed an increase for products such as Platinum, which was up 9.2% to 17,424 contracts.
TOCOM Platinum was actively traded with the price rising above 4,900 yen/gram to a 2-month high. In May, a mine strike continued in South Africa, the largest platinum producer prompting supply fears and higher prices.
The Gold market remained subdued in May with more participants shifting to other asset classes as U.S. economic indicators show improvement and the equity market recovers. A lack of volatility also contributed to this trend.
Open interest at the end of May 2014 for all listed products totaled 308,415 contracts, an increase of 27,546(9.81%) from the end of April. Open intereset rose above 300,000 contracts for the first time in 5 months.
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