COMMODITIES

Electricity Futures Trading Opens With Roar: Electricity futures sparked to life at the New York Mercantile Exchange as brokers got their first taste of trading one of the world’s biggest commodities. Nymex Chairman Daniel Rappaport kicked off futures trading in electricity, a market in which retail customers spend more than $260 billion a year. The June contract for electricity to be delivered at the California-Oregon border settled at $8.33 per megawatt-hour. The other contract, delivered at Palo Verde Switchyard in Arizona, ended at $11.45. Nymex estimated that 928 California/Oregon contracts changed hands, more than triple the Palo Verde volume. In comparison, 1,884 Nymex crude oil contracts traded when it was launched 13 years ago.