CME Official Announcement: Following Gold, Silver Futures to Join "Around-the-Clock Trading"

CME Group is further pushing precious metals trading toward around-the-clock access. Following the strong start of 24/7 trading for 1-ounce Gold Futures, CME announced that it will extend the trading hours for 100-ounce Silver Futures to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a planned launch on September 11, 2026, subject to Regulatory Approval.

According to CME Group's announcement on August 11, the launch of around-the-clock Silver trading is a further extension of the demand for weekend Gold Futures trading. Since its launch on July 24, 1-ounce Gold Futures has seen cumulative weekend trading volume exceed 53,000 contracts, with a notional value of approximately $219 million, indicating strong demand from retail investors for small-lot, always-accessible precious metals futures.

Silver follows closely, which is also related to its continuously rising trading activity. After the 100-ounce Silver Futures launched in February this year, its Average Daily Trading Volume reached 17,800 contracts in the first half of the year; the average daily notional turnover for Silver Futures under CME during the same period reached $50 billion, hitting a record high.

With extended trading hours, investors no longer need to wait for the opening of traditional trading sessions to adjust their Silver exposure in response to macroeconomic data, geopolitical events, and changes in industrial demand, further expanding the trading and risk management windows in the precious metals market.

Gold Validates Retail Demand, Silver Follows Suit

Jin Hennig, Global Head of Metals Business at CME Group, stated that Silver possesses both precious metal and industrial metal attributes. It is influenced by macroeconomic factors and closely linked to real economy demand, thus providing investors with a diversification tool.

She indicated that retail clients have shown strong demand for "always-accessible, appropriately sized Gold Futures," leading CME Group to decide to further expand the around-the-clock trading mechanism to Silver to help market participants manage risk and seize trading opportunities.

Both 1-ounce Gold Futures and 100-ounce Silver Futures are designed for retail trading scenarios, with relatively smaller contract sizes aimed at lowering the barrier to entry. Less than three weeks after the launch of around-the-clock Gold trading, weekend turnover exceeded $200 million, providing direct validation of demand for the expansion of the Silver product.

Silver Futures Trading Activity Continues to Rise

The average daily trading volume for CME Group's metals business in the first half of this year reached 1.3 million contracts, a 55% year-on-year increase, driven mainly by heightened activity in precious metals. The continuously improving trading activity of Silver itself has also become an important foundation for its further inclusion in the around-the-clock trading system.

The 100-ounce Silver Futures are cash-settled, with the settlement price linked to the daily settlement price of the global benchmark COMEX 5,000-ounce Silver Futures contract, and listed for trading under the COMEX rule framework. This design retains the authority of the benchmark price while providing retail investors with a more flexible entry point for Silver trading.

CME Group stated that the around-the-clock trading arrangement still requires regulatory review and expects to complete the relevant processes before the target launch date of September 11.