02/02/2005
Futures Contract: Gold Futures
Contract Months: All Months
Please be advised that NYMEX will be granted a uni-lateral margin credit for the COMEX Gold futures leg of a spread against holdings of the "iShares COMEX Gold Trust", an Exchange Traded Fund ("ETF") recently introduced by the American Stock Exchange. The credit (90% of outright margin) will be granted in the ratio of one COMEX Gold contract to 1,000 iShares.
Similar to other uni-lateral margin credits currently granted by NYMEX, interested Clearing Members would be required to submit a manual credit form (as provided by the Exchange) listing the number of contracts that are part of the COMEX Gold/iShares spread, with a minimum of 50 spreads. Clearing Member firms have the option of passing this reduced rate on to their customers even if the Clearing Member doesn't request the credit from the clearinghouse. Customers are not subject to a minimum number of spreads.
It is important to note that in order to qualify for the spread margin rate, both legs of the COMEX Gold/iShares spread would be required to be maintained on the books of the applicable Clearing Member.
The effect of the margin credit for the COMEX leg of the spread is as follows:
| Current Rate | Available Credit | Net Margin | |
| Clearing Member |
$1,500 |
$1,350 |
$150 |
| Member Customer |
$1,650 |
$1,485 |
$165 |
| Non-Member Customer |
$2,025 |
$1,823 |
$203 |