FIS completes first brokered cobalt trade on CME

Five lots were traded for each month of the February-April 2021 period at $16.75 per lb, according to the United Kingdom-headquartered brokerage.

The CME Group’s cash-settled cobalt futures contract, which is tied to Fastmarkets’ daily benchmark price assessment for the metal, recorded its first trade on December 28, 2019, after the contract launched two weeks earlier.

“FIS has a long legacy of being the first broker to facilitate a trade in a new product, and we are really pleased to have added FM Cobalt to that list,” Tom Fox-Hughes, FIS’ managing director in Asia, said.

“It’s great to be part of another developing market, particularly in the electric vehicle space. We have been really pleased with the amount of interest from our client base and it’s great to have got the first trade on the board,” said Jack Nathan, a commodity broker at FIS.

“Fastmarkets is very pleased to see the positive launch of this cobalt contract. The need to effectively manage price risk in this market continues to grow in line with the wider battery raw material space, and we look forward to seeing the contract evolve,” Jon Mulcahy, price development manager at Fastmarkets, said.

The international cobalt market has witnessed a strong upturn since the beginning of the year, following the momentum in Chinese market which has been underpinned by expectations for the China Reserve Bureau to conduct another round of cobalt metal stockpiling.

Fastmarkets’ price assessment for cobalt standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam was $16.30-16.90 per lb on Thursday, up by $0.30-0.40 per lb (2.2%) from $16-16.50 per lb a day earlier. The benchmark metal price has risen by 6.4% since January 1.