Aluminium open interest, volume on CME hit record high in February

(Reuters) – Aluminium futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange hit record average daily volumes in February, a four-fold jump compared to a year ago, and open interest also reached historic highs, the exchange operator said on Thursday.

The average daily volume last month reached 3,161 contracts, 300% higher from a year earlier, the futures markets operator, said in a statement.

Each physically deliverable CME contract represents 25 metric tonnes, and by the calculation, about 79,025 metric tonnes of aluminium traded on the CME’s futures market in February.

Average daily open interest of 2,549 contracts rallied 711% year-over-year and included trade on contracts through December 2024.

Open interest tallies the number of options contracts that have yet to be settled between buyers and sellers, a measure of investors’ participation in a market.

(Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)