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The London Metal Exchange is the world centre for industrial metals trading.

Most of the world’s non-ferrous metals business is conducted on our three trading platforms: LMEselect (electronic), the Ring (open outcry) and the 24-hour telephone market. 

Last year, 149 million lots were traded, equating to $15. trillion and 3.5 billion tonnes notional, with a market open interest high of 1.9 million lots. Trading on the LME often exceeds world metal production by a factor of 40.

The global metal community uses the LME to trade futures and options to hedge against adverse price movements – prices which are discovered on our markets and used as the global reference.

Participants can trade six different types of contract against a wide number of non-ferrous, ferrous, precious and EV metals on a choice of three platforms.

Resources

LME Rulebook (PDF)

Aluminium
Access the market
Whether you are an industrial hedger, physical market trader or prop desk there are, broadly speaking, two ways of accessing our markets.
Copper
Contract types
Participants can trade one of our 14 underlying metals using futures, options, TAPOs, Monthly Average Futures, LMEminis and our index product, LMEX. 
Aluminium
Systems
A set of robust systems and technologies underpin trading at the LME and provide security to those trading on our market. 
Close up of numbers
Volatility controls: price limits and price bands
The LME uses three mechanisms to help manage excessive price volatility and avoid erroneous order entry.
The Ring
Trading venues
The LME provides the market with three transparent and regulated venues for trading industrial metal contracts.

Initiatives

We always strive to improve services for existing users of the market whilst reaching out to new participants with new ideas and new products. Here’s a selection of our latest offerings.

Data
Find out more about our programme of work to fully rebuild our electronic trading platform, LMEselect.
New trading platform
Geometric structure
Our discussion paper on market structure set out a range of proposals designed to enable the LME to modernise and adapt.
Market structure evolution

LMEpassport, a key component of the LME’s drive for a more sustainable future, is a new system that does away with paper certificates of analysis and provides the market with a new voluntary register of a metal’s sustainability credentials.

Find out more
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