EUROPEAN UNION: ESMA Publishes Position Limits for Liquid Contracts

Thursday October 26 2017

MiFID II provides for all commodity derivatives traded on trading venues and economically equivalent OTC contracts to be subject to position limits. Relevant NCAs have to establish position limits on the basis of the methodology for calculation determined by ESMA in RTS 21. For illiquid contracts, the spot month and the other months’ limits are set by default in Article 15 of RTS 21 and amount to 2,500 lots or 2.5 million securities issued in the case of securitized derivatives. Liquid contracts receive bespoke position limits set by the relevant NCAs.

To further assist market participants with the implementation of the MiFID II position limit framework, ESMA publishes a list of liquid commodity derivatives currently identified by the relevant NCAs. The list is based exclusively on submissions by the relevant NCAs and will be subject to change, on the basis of the information provided by the latter.

Click on the link above for ESMA list of liquid contracts.