The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) announced today that February 2013 trading volume averaged 160,704 contracts per day, up 15.8% from January 2013. Average daily volume for the precious metals, oil and rubber markets was 157,715 contracts. The agricultural product and sugar market, which opened for business on February 12, saw an average of 4,368 contracts traded.
There was significant volume growth in petroleum products on a month-over-month basis: Crude Oil was up 67.8% to 9,625 contracts, Gasoline was up 52.2% to 14,706 contracts and Kerosene was up 73.8% to 7,269 contracts. Trade in the four agricultural products made a good start, topping the most recent average daily volume of 4,101 recorded at the Tokyo Grain Exchange. There was little news to move the agricultural markets leading up to the Chinese New Year; volatility is likely to increase the North American farmland weather forecast is released.
In the first half of February, widely expectations for a global economic recovery pushed up commodity prices. At TOCOM, Gold (back contract month) recorded an all-time high of 5,081 yen per gram on February 7 and Crude Oil (back contract month) pushed through previous highs made 52 months prior at 66,460 yen per kiloliter on February 13. Toward the end of the month, prices dropped with growing political instability in Italy.
At TOCOM, gold saw particularly significant increases with an all-time high of 4,944 yen seen on January 31 for the Dec 2013 back-contract month. Gold prices have been on a bullish trend in Japan in part due to the falling yen, which hit 91.00/USD that day.
Open interest at the end of January for all listed products totaled 396,260 contracts. As for the precious metals, oil and rubber markets, total open interest was 361,387 contracts, a decrease of 91 contracts from the prior month. Month-end open interest for the agricultural product and sugar market was 34,873 contracts.
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