On Tuesday,?CME Group (CME) launched its?North American physically delivered?Aluminum futures?contracts and on its first day, 56 contracts traded in four different expiry month.?Macquarie Bank Limited was the executing firm. ?
Derek Sammann, CME Group’s Senior Managing Director of FX, Metals and Options Solutions, said in a press release,?”We’re pleased to see broad-based support for our new North American physical aluminum futures contract on day one. By working with key producers, consumers and merchant traders in the aluminum market to develop this product, we believe that it will allow participants to better manage their price risk and will serve as the premier price reference for the North American aluminum industry.”
Matthew Forgham, Macquarie Bank’s Managing Director in FICC, added, “Macquarie provides clients globally with metals-related risk management trading and hedging services, including a full range of futures execution and clearing services. We are very honored to be the first to trade CME Group’s aluminum futures contracts, underlining our commitment to supporting our corporate and industry clients.”?
North American physically delivered?Aluminum futures?contracts are listed by and subject to the rules of COMEX. They will face competition from the?London Metal Exchange?s (LME) aluminum contract as it is the largest and most liquid one traded on the exchange; market participants have viewed it as the “de facto means of trading futures in the industrial metal,” noted the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday, aluminum futures volume was 13,682 contracts on the LME.