The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) announced today that January 2013 trading volume averaged 138,736 contracts per day, up 26% from December 2012.
There was volume growth in most listed products. Contracts such as Gold Standard (up 14.7% to 67,518 contracts), Platinum (up 70.9% to 25,028 contracts), and Crude Oil (up 28.7% to 5,737 contracts) contributed significantly to the month-over month increase in market-wide trading volume.
Expectations for a global economic recovery heightened among the market participants, which apparently supported world precious metal prices. In Japan, depreciation of the yen against U.S. dollar advanced further and helped push up yen-denominated precious metals prices on TOCOM. In January, high volatility in precious metals led volume growth at TOCOM.
At TOCOM, particularly significant increases were seen in the price of gold, which recorded an all-time high on January 31 at 4,944 yen for the Dec 2013 back-contract month. Gold prices have been on a bullish trend globally and the yen fell to 91.00/USD that day.
Platinum prices also advanced, responding to signs of a recovery in the U.S. automobile sales and the news of South African mine closures. Platinum reached 4,999 yen/gram on January 28 for a 23-month high.
Open interest at the end of January for all listed contracts totaled 361,478 contracts, an increase of 7,965 contracts (2.25%) from the prior month.
Finally, the Exchange announced that trades originating overseas amounted to 15,083,256 contracts including both sell and buy trades, during 2012, accounting for 29.6% of total annual volume.
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