Shanghai Gold Exchange ups margins for gold, silver

SHANGHAI: The Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) will temporarily raise trade margins and daily trading limits for both its gold and silver forward contracts ahead of a long weekend to allow traders more latitude to adjust to overseas price movements, it said on Monday.

Trading margins for the gold forward contract, Au(T+D) , will be raised starting Sept 9 to 13 percent from 12 percent, while the daily circuit breaker would be lifted to 10 percent from 9 percent.

The silver gold forward contract, Ag(T+D) , will also see its trading margin raised by one percentage point to 16 percent, while daily movement will be raised to 12 percent, from 10 percent.

The SGE said the collateral and daily price limits for both contracts would revert back to their pre-holiday levels on Sept. 14 if those limits were not breached on the first day of market re-opening on Sept 13.

Chinese exchanges are closed Sept 10-12 for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Gold and silver prices have whipsawed in August, with the price of the yellow metal soaring to a record high of over $1,911 on Aug. 23 and then slumping over 10 percent in just two days to $1,702.44 on a flurry of profit-taking.

Exchanges routinely revises the margin requirements to cover the risk of a default.

Copyright Reuters, 2010