Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The London Metal Exchange, the world’s largest copper market, said trading rose 22 percent last year for a fourth consecutive record, paced by nickel and lead.
A total of 113 million futures and options on metals and plastics were traded, including a 28 percent increase to 8.8 million in December, the
LME said today in an e-mailed statement. The exchange, founded in 1877, handled $10.24 trillion of contracts compared with $9.5 trillion in 2007.
LME Chief Executive Officer Martin Abbott said in October he expected business to expand 20 percent as manufacturers favor bourses over bank-backed over-the-counter trading. Volume was a record in October,
LME spokeswoman Emma Davey said.
“We didn’t see volume tail off. Open interest continued to grow,” Davey said. “Our feeling was there was an element of a switch of business from off the exchange onto the exchange.”
Nickel futures trading rose 37 percent to 5.2 million contracts and lead advanced 32 percent to 6.1 million. Trading in aluminum futures, the exchange’s most popular contract, jumped 20 percent to 48.3 million and copper jumped almost 24 percent to 26.5 million contracts.
Copper, nickel, aluminum and other industrial metals on the
LME had the biggest annual drops last year since at least 1990, ending a rally in industrial metals that began in 2002. Lead paced the declines with a 61 percent drop, followed by nickel down 56 percent and copper 54 percent. Aluminum dropped 36 percent, zinc fell 49 percent and tin declined 35 percent.
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