By Tatyana Shumsky
NEW YORK--Exchange operator CME Group Inc. (CME) reduced the
amount of collateral required to trade the benchmark copper futures
contract on Thursday.
The CME, which owns the Comex division of the New York
Mercantile Exchange, trimmed copper margins by 3.7% at close of
trading Monday, in a notice emailed Thursday afternoon.
Speculative investors in the benchmark 25,000-pound copper
contract can now deposit $2,860 to open a position and maintain
$2,600 of that to keep that position overnight. That's down from
the previous initial margin of $2,970 and maintenance margin of
$2,700.
The initial and maintenance margin requirements for producers or
consumers of copper have been reduced to $2,600 from $2,700.
The CME said the changes came as part of a normal review of
market volatility.
Write to Tatyana Shumsky at tatyana.shumsky@wsj.com
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