CME Cuts Silver, Gold Trading Margins

NEW YORK--Exchange operator CME Group Inc. (CME) reduced the amount of collateral required to trade the benchmark gold and silver futures contracts on Thursday.

CME, which owns the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, trimmed gold margins by 7.7% effective close of trading Friday, in a notice emailed Thursday evening.

Speculative investors in the benchmark 100-troy ounce gold contract can now deposit $6,600 to open a position and maintain $6,000 of that to keep that position overnight. That's down from the previous initial margin of $7,150 and maintenance margin of $6,500.

The initial and maintenance margin requirements for producers or consumers of gold have been reduced to $6,000 from $6,500.

Trading margins on the benchmark 5,000-ounce silver futures contract were cut 8.3%. Speculators must now deposit $9,075 to open a silver futures position and maintain $8,250 of that overnight, down from $9,900 initial margin and $9,000 maintenance margin previously.

The initial and maintenance margin requirements for silver producers and consumers have been reduced to $8,250 from $9,000.

- Write to Tatyana Shumsky at [e-mail]

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