Moscow exchange launches first precious metals trading

The stock exchange is going to start trading gold and silver by the end of this year, and platinum and palladium in 2014. Trading physical metals is expected to boost liquidity in the market and attract more participants.

Russia has so far only been trading futures on gold and silver, not dealing with real metals.

Gold has been occasionally sold on the over-the-counter market and the only benchmark for price was the Central bank’s quotations, Gazeta.ru reports.  Now gold will get the market price in rubles.

“We are a gold-exporting country. We produce a large number of precious metals. However, the trade volume is still significantly lagging behind our peers. Our commodity market is not transparent," Gazeta.ru quotes the director of the commodity market of the Moscow exchange, Mikhail Orlenko.

Spot metal trading will be based on the platform of the existing foreign exchange market. Credit institutions licensed to conduct operations with precious metals and non-banking professional brokers will be the main players on the market, Gazeta,ru quotes the presentation by the bourse.

The Moscow stock exchange plans to transport precious metals from production companies, keep them in its own stores and deliver to the buyer the next day.

The launch of trading in gold and silver on the Moscow exchange will boost liquidity on the market and attract more participants by these new financial instruments, RBC quotes Sberbank as commenting.