At present, there is almost no option to directly trade goods in the stock exchange market. Commodity options (at least in the United States) is an option for commodity futures. This situation has its historical and economic reasons.
In the United States, the derivatives market of gold, non-ferrous metals, crude oil and other commodities developed from the futures market. The economic function of derivatives market in commodity market has always been recognized as the role of price discovery and hedging. Until recently, the financial attributes of commodity futures have gradually increased.
Commodity trading finds that price and hedging are effective through futures. First, the scale of futures contracts is generally relatively large; Second, futures contracts have the advantage of directly grasping the direction of price movement; Third, the margin of futures contracts is relatively low, so the leverage is large; Fourth, the trading of futures contracts is relatively simple.
Option trading in the United States began in the securities market. The securities and exchange commission of the United States set the margin of derivative options trading at a relatively high level from the beginning. As investors become more and more mature, some people do advocate trading options directly on the spot of commodities instead of trading futures options, because options are more flexible than futures and more suitable for strategic trading. However, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission did not approve such an application.
If the function of commodity derivatives trading is price discovery and hedging, then stick to futures business. If you need to take advantage of the flexibility of options to avoid volatility and other benefits, it is to trade options on futures contracts. Of course, most OTC derivatives are realized in the form of options rather than futures. However, participants in OTC trading are highly skilled professionals, especially traders in investment banks. So over-the-counter trading cannot prove that they are also effective in over-the-counter trading.
In addition, the trading of commodity derivatives mainly serves the producers and users of commodities. If an option contract with a small contract scale and no delivery obligation is established, it is likely to bring a large number of speculators and distort the price of commodities with limited resources, which is also one of people's concerns.
In China, since the gold futures business was listed on the Shanghai Gold Exchange in 2008, the trading scale has increased year by year, and the trading volume has jumped to the fourth place in the world. However, the gold option business is only carried out in some commercial banks at present, and has not formed a market with a certain scale.
Therefore, whether from a policy point of view or an economic point of view, to boost the derivatives trading market and business of gold, I am afraid we need to look for opportunities in other aspects.