After the industrial revolution, Britain's national strength rose rapidly. 1860, British manufacturing accounted for 19.9% of the world economy, becoming the first country in the history of world economy to be called "the factory of the world". Highly developed manufacturing industry has a huge demand for all kinds of industrial raw materials. A large number of metal raw materials come from South America, Africa and the Far East. Under the conditions at that time, it was very risky to transport copper and tin across the ocean: some goods might arrive late, and some might not arrive at all. The rise of the "future arrival" market makes the merchants focus on the reservation price, which comes from the judgment and estimation of the possible arrival date and the user's demand at that time.

1876 65438+In February, London Metal Exchange Limited was formally established as the former London Metal Exchange (LME). Although there was no formal standard contract at that time, copper bars in Chile, tin in Malaysia and tin in Singapore were determined as the benchmark grades of copper and tin respectively, and the delivery date of the forward contract was 3 months (the sailing time from San Diego and Singapore to the UK was about 3 months). From 65438 to 0899, the trading of copper and tin began to adopt the current trading method, that is, it was divided into morning and afternoon sessions, and each session was divided into two rounds. As the exchange prohibits trading on the floor after the official trading hours, and the official trading hours are too short to meet the needs of traders, some businessmen continue trading in the street outside the building after the official trading hours, and the noise of street trading leads to police intervention. The exchange then allowed traders to continue informal trading on the floor after the official trading hours, and the term "KerbDealing" derived from it has been used to this day.

Until now, the London Metal Exchange is still the most influential metal exchange in the world. The varieties listed on this exchange include copper, tin, lead, zinc, aluminum, nickel and silver. You should also know that the world's largest metal exchange was acquired by China Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 20 12.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, founded in 1933, is the representative of American metal futures trading. The metal varieties currently listed on the exchange include gold, silver, copper and aluminum. 1974 gold futures listed in this exchange have certain influence in the international market.