The London Metal Exchange (LME) is the world’s leading platform for trading industrial metals. Established in 1877, the LME serves as a central marketplace for the buying and selling of base metals, offering futures and options contracts for a variety of metals such as aluminum, copper, zinc, nickel, and lead. Its commitment to providing efficient price discovery and risk management solutions has made it a cornerstone of the global metals market.

Most of the world’s non-ferrous metals business is conducted on our three trading platforms: LMEselect (electronic), the Ring (open outcry) and the 24-hour telephone market. Last year, 178 million lots were traded, equating to $18. trillion and 4 billion tonnes notional, with a market open interest high of 1.8 million lots. Trading on the LME often exceeds world metal production by a factor of 40.  The global metal community uses the LME to trade futures and options to hedge against adverse price movements – prices which are discovered on our markets and used as the global reference. Participants can trade six different types of contract against a wide number of non-ferrous, ferrous, precious and EV metals on a choice of three platforms.