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Friday May 14, 7:13 pm Eastern Time
New COMEX aluminum contract off to a steady start
By Catherine Tymkiw
NEW YORK, May 14 (Reuters) - New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) officials said they were pleased with Friday's launch of the exchange's new aluminum futures contract.
''I think this is a nice, healthy opening,'' said NYMEX President Patrick Thompson.
Most active COMEX September aluminum settled at 66.35 cents a lb, trading between 65.90 and 66.50 cents a lb. Front month August ended at 66.35 cents a lb, trading between 65.85 and 65.85 cents a lb.
This is the second time NYMEX's COMEX division has launched an aluminum futures contract. The previous one, launched in the mid-1980s, failed due to lack of trading volume. Most aluminum futures trading is done on the London Metal Exchange (LME).
On Friday the LME cash settlement price was $1,349 a tonne (61.19 cents a lb), while in the U.S. physical market Midwest primary aluminum premiums were quoted at 4.75-5.00 cents a lb over LME cash settlement price.
The new NYNEX contract calls for Midwest delivery of the metal with a minimum grade of P1020A, or 99.7 percent purity, in 44,000-lb lots.
AIG International, part of American International Group(NYSE:AIG - news), is the specialist market maker, responsible for maintaining a two-way market for a minimum number of lots in the front delivery months of the contract until liquidity, or trading volume, is established.
By 0900 EDT/1300 GMT, 1,200 lots had traded and final volumes were estimated at 1,750 lots.
''For a first day, that was good,'' said one floor trader. ''There seemed to be some liquidity in the market and we're going to have to go from there,'' he added.
''These numbers rank with the opening day numbers of our most successful futures contracts, including gold which traded 2,550 contracts on opening day and crude oil which traded 1,884 contracts on its first day,'' said Thompson.
Trading began with a rumble but whether the noise subsides or resonates remains to be seen.
''Most of the action was from spec (speculative) sources, which is pretty much what you'd expect. It would have been a surprise if you had seen the trade lining up to get involved from Day One,'' said a broker.
''The real test is not today, or even next week. The real test is what happens once they cut loose the market maker and the (contract) survives by itself,'' he added.
The market maker will no longer be used when initial liquidity is achieved, based on an average volume of 2,000 contracts per day and open interest of 25,000 contracts is reached.
Traders said the novelty of a launched contract generated some of Friday's paper blizzard in the aluminum ring, but emphasized that it would take several months before anyone could predict the contract's success rate.
''You would expect a (new) contract to get interest on an opening day,'' said one source. ''We certainly will look at the arbitrage possibilities,'' he added.
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