LME heeds calls for more transparency The London Metal Exchange is set to start publishing information about the futures positions of hedge funds and other traders in response to calls for greater transparency. The 136-year-old exchange, which was bought by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing for £1.4bn last year, has endured a storm of criticism in recent months amid complaints about long queues to withdraw physical metal from its network of warehouses. Several large users of the exchange have called for greater transparency at the LME, suggesting that it should start publishing so-called "commitments of traders" reports as US futures exchanges do. Doing so would reveal for the first time the level of participation by hedge funds and other speculators in the global base metals markets. The criticism of the exchange, which has triggered investigations by US regulators, will be the main topic of discussion at LME week, the largest gathering of the metals and mining industry, which begins on Monday in London. Alcoa, the US aluminium producer, said in a letter to the exchange last month that the LME's historical lack of transparency had had "a damaging impact on the aluminium industry." US exchanges, including the LME rival the New York Mercantile Exchange, have for years published weekly data on the number of commodity contracts held by hedge funds, commercial users and other market participants. NYSE Liffe and ICE, two major London-based exchanges, started doing so in 2011. But the LME has long resisted publishing such reports, arguing that they confuse rather than clarify the market. Martin Abbott, who announced his resignation as chief executive of the exchange in June, said last year: "The reason we don't publish a commitments of traders report is we don't deliberately publish rubbish." However, people familiar with the LME's discussions said that it has dropped its resistance to the idea, and could start publishing the reports next year. "I don't think as an exchange you can argue that transparency is a bad thing," one of the people said. The metals industry, which relies heavily on LME contracts as benchmark prices, is also looking to the exchange to respond to criticism of its warehousing system. In July the LME proposed a new rule that would bring down queues to take metal out of the largest warehouses - but that proposal has also been attacked by users of the exchange. No decision will be taken on the new rules until a board meeting at the end of the month, people close to the discussions said. But they added that the exchange was likely to push ahead with the broad thrust of its original proposal.