Market professionals have been voting with their keyboards for the last six months as the interest created by the launch of Cleartrade Exchange has been met with continuing and very positive support.
The global electronic marketplace for freight and commodity derivatives has confirmed that its first six months have generated huge momentum in establishing and operating an internationally regulated, multi-commodity electronic execution venue.
Cleartrade Exchange received regulatory approval last week from the Swiss Regulator, FINMA, to operate as a Foreign Exchange in Switzerland, thus permitting Swiss-based securities dealers to trade on its platform. Early indications have led Cleartrade Exchange to expect a significant number of traders within Switzerland to begin trading in July 2011.
In June Cleartrade Exchange reached over 160,000 lots processed across just over 6,000 trades since January 2011, more than doubling the 70,000 lots announced in April. These trades were a combination of Dry Freight Forward Agreements (FFAs), Iron Ore and Fertiliser contracts, with most of them being FFA contracts.
Cleartrade Exchange launched its market discovery screen on 2nd June and already has over 100 users around the world who have access to the new screen. Significant interest from the USA, Europe and Asia has been primarily driven by interest in price discovery and forward curves for iron ore and fertiliser products. Cleartrade Exchange launched the trading venue for principal trading on 6th June; since the launch principals have traded over 350 FFA lots directly with a range of 5 day to 90 day periods traded on screen. These have been cleared through LCH.Clearnet, NOS Clearing and SGX Asiaclear.
In addition, the Cleartrade Exchange Trade Repository Portal has been permissioned to all clients. The trade repository provides real-time electronic recaps, automates the production of trade confirmations and archives trade history for all asset classes and all types of trading parties. It is an integral part of the Cleartrade Platform Cloud Service, which is virtually hosted and is accessible via a secure url.
Richard Baker, CEO of Cleartrade Exchange, said, “The interest and support within the global trading community has exceeded all expectations for our first six months. We are delighted to report the huge strides we have made towards our ultimate goal, being the venue of choice for the execution of OTC Cleared commodities. I would like to thank our partners and clients for their support and the whole team who have made tremendous efforts and shown great commitment in getting us to this point. We are all keen to keep the momentum going.” He continued, “The FINMA regulatory approval coupled with the success of the market discovery screen and the launch of the Trade Repository Portal have all contributed to a very healthy first half year of trading.”
