Press releases 2007

The London Stock Exchange will on Tuesday 24 April welcome five new Exchange Traded Commodities to its commodities market segment. The new commodities, which are issued by ETF Securities, include Platinum, Palladium, Silver and Gold trackers as well as a basket of the four metals. The securities will be based on a physical underlying, which is the simplest and most accurate way to track the price of a commodity, and will be eligible for inclusion in ISAs and PEPs.

Martin Graham, Director of Markets at the Exchange, said:

“We’re delighted to welcome these new ETCs to our market. Since its launch in September last year, we have seen nearly £2 billion worth of trading on our commodities segment, which demonstrates that investors welcome the opportunity to use commodities for portfolio diversification without the need to access the futures market.”

Graham Tuckwell, Chairman of ETF securities, said:

“We want to offer investors exposure to a broad range of precious metals which have historically been extremely difficult to access. Unlike many other commodities, precious metals are durable and easily stored, enabling the ETCs to be backed by allocated physical bars which have transparent pricing and carry no credit risk. As a result, the new physical ETCs save investors from many of the difficulties associated with purchasing precious metals such as access to physical bars and then having to store and insure those bars.”

The Exchange introduced its Exchange Traded Commodities market in September 2006. The market is traded on SETSmm and offers a bespoke trading environment for 31 single commodities and commodity indices based on futures prices in the energy, metals and agriculture markets, as well as the Lyxor Gold Bullion security which is based on a physical underlying. The Exchange Traded Commodities will settle in CREST, can be traded stamp-duty free and are eligible for inclusion in SIPPs.

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