Tocom volume recovering after brutal yearThe Tokyo Commodity Exchange suffered a 30% decline in annual trading volume for 2009, with 28.8m contracts traded. However, activity is recovering. Average daily volume increased gradually from 87,000 contracts in May to 143,000 in December, while open interest at the end of the year was 320,000 contracts, a level not seen since October 2008.Tocom offers 11 futures on precious metals, aluminium, rubber and oil products, as well as an option on gold, which does not trade.December’s average volume of 143,581 contracts a day was 4.4% up on November 2009. The major contribution to this gain came from Tocom’s flagship Gold Future, where trading rose 13% from November levels to average 78,590 contracts a day. Rubber trading was up 24% at 12,484 contracts a day.Mini Gold contracts, meanwhile, declined by 14% to 17,654 contracts a day, while Gasoline averaged 10,307 contracts,...