CME Reports Incorrect Copper Prices

Exchange operator CME Group Inc. sent out incorrect copper settlement prices on Friday, the second time in a week that the company published erroneous futures market data.

CME Group, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange and its Comex division, transmitted incorrect preliminary settlements in Comex copper contracts, an error that affected all delivery dates for copper futures. The error occurred at approximately 12:18 p.m. CDT and was corrected at 12:21 p.m. CDT, the CME told The Wall Street Journal.

A CME spokeswoman declined to answer questions or explain how the error occurred. "I can't comment beyond what I already told you," Alexandra Gorbokon said.

Brokers and traders dismissed the jump in copper settlement prices as a glitch due to the outsize nature of the move. Copper settlement prices shot up to $3.6635 a pound, before being corrected to $2.6635 a pound. Copper prices hadn't traded above $3.60 a pound for about two years.

"When you see that, you pretty much know that that was a misquote," said Bill O'Neill, co-founder of Logic Advisors LLC.

A similar problem had occurred in crude-oil and natural-gas prices on March 6. On that day, the Nymex sent out incorrect oil and gas prices during the trading day. While the CME corrected the data soon after the mistake occurred, some trading platforms continued to show inaccurate data because of difficulties processing the correction.

Timothy Puko contributed to this article.

Write to Tatyana Shumsky at [e-mail]

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