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CME Group Increasing Margins For Silver, Copper, Platinum Futures

16 December 2010, 4:36 p.m.
By Kitco News
http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) - CME Group announced Thursday that margin requirements are being hiked for silver, copper and palladium futures, effective after the close of business on Friday.

CME Group, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange and its Comex division, also announced margin changes for a number of other markets, including Treasury note and bond futures, federal-funds futures and natural-gas index swap futures.

The changes were made as a part of “normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage,” CME Group said.

For speculators in the main Comex silver futures contract, the “initial” margin was increased to $10,463 from $9,788. The margin for hedgers and the “maintenance” margin for speculative accounts were upped to $7,750 from $7,250.

In Comex copper, the initial speculative margin was upped to $6,413 from $5,400. The margin for hedgers and the maintenance margin for speculators were hiked to $4,750 from $4,000.

For the main Nymex palladium contract, the initial margin for speculators was upped to $5,500 from $4,950. Both the maintenance margin for speculators and the margin for hedgers was raised to $5,000 from $4,500.

Margins also rose for the miNY silver and palladium futures, plus E-mini copper and silver futures.

A link for the announcement on margin changes is below:

http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/lookups/advisories/clearing/files/Chadv10-507.pdf

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; [e-mail]

http://www.kitco.com/reports/KitcoNews20101216ASKN.html