LME minis spark Select concerns

Brokers have expressed concerns that London Metal Exchange (LME)'s electronic trading platform Select could lack the robustness and distribution to ensure the success of its soon to be launched mini-sized metals contracts. Doubts were cast over the platform's ability to handle an anticipated increase in trading volume when the contracts are launched on 20 November, which would also bring it into competition with contracts on rival New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex)'s Globex system, believed to have considerably superior distribution.

LME has been beta testing an upgraded fifth version of Select, due to be rolled out on 4 November with increased capacity and black box trading support. But despite reassurances...