Trading activity in tin on the London Metal Exchange grew faster than that of most other LME contracts in the first half of 2008, although volumes have dropped sharply recently.
Futures and options volumes in tin rose by 21.5% to 767,000 lots in January-June compared to the same period of 2007. Across a total of 22 contracts, including plastics and steel, more than 54 million lots traded on the exchange from January to June, an increase of 17.5% on last year. Only three of the contracts – nickel, lead and aluminium alloy – experienced faster growth than tin. The new half year total for the whole exchange represents turnover of US$5.6 trillion in notional value.
A large part of the growth in tin trading in January-June was in options, where volumes were more than eight times year-ago levels. Futures turnover rose 13.7%. However June volumes were well down on year ago levels, with futures turnover down by 29.8% compared to June 2007 and options activity down by over 53%.
