The Tokyo Commodity Exchange, Inc. announced today a new three-year Midterm Management Plan covering fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2016.
The Exchange has annual, rolling updates of its three-year Midterm Management Plan in order to quickly address changes to the business environment.
Average daily trade volume for fiscal 2013 (Tentative figure for April 2013–February 2014) was 98,000 contracts, down 9% year-on-year. Speculation that the FRB’s asset buying program might end early caused major price declines for gold in international markets. This led to strong gold futures trading and volume increases on TOCOM last April. However, volatility across the markets fell in May and remained low thereafter with subdued markets. Concerns of slowing growth in emerging economies and prospects for QE3 tapering also contributed to tepid trading.
Under the circumstances, the Exchange’s updated Midterm Management Plan for fiscal 2014 through fiscal 2016 has determined to steadily implement the priority initiatives outlined below to enhance liquidity so that we can deliver sufficient market functions and achieve early turnaround. Alongside such efforts, keeping in mind TOCOM’s establishment of a comprehensive energy market being vital to Japan, TOCOM will continue to study the situation surrounding the “comprehensive exchange” to determine whether participation by TOCOM would benefit the commodity futures industry and support future growth.
- Initiatives to increase volume
(1) Attract a wide range of new market participants
(2) Enhance the product portfolio
(3) Further improve market convenience and reliability - Initiatives for trading system revamp
- Initiatives for further cost reductions
- Initiatives for compliance with new global regulatory frameworks
*Detailed description of the “Midterm Management Plan (Fiscal 2014-2015) can be found here.