The Tokyo Commodity Exchange announced today that average daily trading volume for July was 76,579 contracts, down 2.2% from June. TOCOM’s leading commodiies saw higher volume: Gold increased 2.9% to 27,554 contracts and Crude Oil was up 3.9% to 2,948 contracts. This was outpaced by delines in other listed products such as Rubber, which was down 22.9% to 8,313 contracts.
TOCOM Gold prices maintained an upward trend through the middle the month from safe-heaven buying resulting from increased tensions in the Middle East and the fears over huge losses reported by Banco Espirito Santo (ESP) of Portugal. The market was range-bound from mid-month thereafter, with a dip after ESP fears subsided and a rebound after the Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Ukraine. Gold prices were somewhat pressured on good economic news out of Europe, the U.S. and China. Palladium prices increased as supply concerns grew due to increasing political instability in producing countries, bolstered with stronger global economic prospects. The price rose above 2,900 yen per gram on July 29 for the first time in more than 13 years.
For some commodities, volume increased on the back of price volatility. For others, volume decreased in the context of the market’s wait-and-see approach prior to the FOMC announcement. As such, overall market volume ended up with a small monthly decline.
Open interest at the end of July 2014 for all listed products totaled 345,832 contracts, an increase of 36,651 (11.85%) from the end of June.
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