CME to cut margins on gold, precious metals, coppe

CME to cut margins on gold, precious metals, copper futures
Fri Feb 8, 2013 7:01pm IST

* CME to cut gold margins by 10 pct effective Feb. 12
* CME also lowering silver, platinum, copper margins

Feb 8 (Reuters) - CME Group Inc will broadly cut margins on precious metals including gold, silver and platinum as well as on copper, effective after close of business on Tuesday, Feb. 12.

CME, the biggest operator of U.S. futures exchanges, said late Thursday it lowered initial margins on the benchmark COMEX 100-ounce gold futures contract by 10 percent to $5,940 per contract from $6,600.

It also cut maintenance margins by 10 percent to $5,400 from $6,000.

On Dec. 28, CME trimmed initial margins on gold futures by 11 percent.

Futures exchanges often adjust margin requirements to protect themselves against the risk of participants defaulting in response to changing market volatility.

CME also cut the margins on the COMEX 5,000-ounce silver contract by around 14 percent, and those of the NYMEX 50-ounce platinum futures contract by about 13 percent.

In addition, CME lowered margins for COMEX 25,000-lb copper futures by around 11 percent.

To see the complete list of margin changes by CME click on:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/cme-...4P20130208