The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) announced today that March 2013 trading volume averaged 112,673 contracts per day, down 29.9% from February 2013. Average daily volume for all the listed products, except Rubber, saw decreases: Gold was down 32.0% to 47,897 contracts, Platinum was down 35.6% to 18,076 contracts and the Crude Oil was down 42.2% to 5,567 contracts.
In the first half of March, trades on the commodity market increased in expectation of the economic recovery gaining momentum, as evidenced by U.S. DJIA which reached an all-time high. In the following half, however, the market stagnated in response to the Cyprus bailout - a continuation of the European sovereign debt crisis. These issues seem to be the backdrop of the significant drop in volume.
Open interest at the end of March for all listed products totaled 386,730 contracts, a decrease of 9,530 contracts from the prior month.
For fiscal 2012 (from April 2012 to March 2013), trades on TOCOM totaled 26,502,661 contracts, down 14.2% on a year-to-year basis. Annual volume averaged 108,174 contracts per day, down 13.8% from last year. The main reason for this decline could be attributed to the euro crisis and consequent global economic slowdown.
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