On March 25, the Macro-Finance Salon (No. 177) was held online. This event was co-hosted by the IMI, China Bulk Commodity Circulation Exchange Association of China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, and the Research Center and Derivative Finance 50 of Dalian Commodity Exchange. The online seminar was the 20th session of the series entitled “Finance Propels the Opening of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan”. During the seminar, Xue Jianliang, Director of the Financial Market Research Office of the Research Center of Dalian Commodity Exchange delivered a keynote titled “Building a Derivative Market with Chinese Characteristics to Serve the New Development Paradigm with Domestic Circulation as the Mainstay: Thoughts on and Implications of LME Nickel Market Chaos”. Participating in the seminar were Zhao Jufeng, metal exchange specialist at Sucden Financial Limited of the UK; Zhu Bin, Chief Economist of Nanhua Futures Co., Ltd.; Chen Ye, Director of the Commodity Department I of Shanghai Futures Exchange; Hu Yuyue, Director of Institute of Securities and Futures, Beijing Technology and Business University; Tang Ke, Director of Institute of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University; Guo Biao, Deputy Director of the Department of Applied Finance, the School of Finance, RUC; and Zhou Xu, Vice President of China Bulk Commodity Circulation Exchange Association, China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing. The seminar was moderated by Feng Bo, Secretary General of Derivative Finance 50.

The participants analyzed in depth the causes and implications of the recent surge of nickel price on the LME, and discussed commodity trading strategies of Chinese companies and how to build the market of financial derivatives.