Gold Futures Shine as Crude Oil Faces Regulatory Hurdles

CME Group's one-ounce gold futures successfully traded through their first weekend on a continuous schedule, with nearly 15,000 contracts changing hands worth about $60 million in notional value. This milestone marks the exchange's entry into the world of 24/7 trading for certain commodities.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been reviewing CME's application to list crude oil futures on a continuous schedule, but so far, it has stayed their 10-barrel WTI contract. Chairman Michael Selig called the exchange's decision to self-certify it 'wholly inappropriate.'

Adam Haeems, Head of Asset Management at Tesseract Group, noted that the reference market decides the outcome. Continuous trading is accepted where the spot market already runs continuously and stopped where physical delivery is involved.