Comex brokerages lure clients with mega prizes

The country’s top commodities brokerage houses, in an effort to increase turnover, are giving away exciting prizes to their clients, if they generate exceptionally high volumes during the offer period.

Leading brokerage house Kotak Commodity Services has announced a ‘Super Traders Contest’. It says that traders can win high-end mobile phones such as BlackBerry, HTC Touch and Nokia if they can generate volumes worth Rs 25-50 crore during the offer period.
 

HIGH-TECH CONTESTS
Volumes per month	Prize
Between Rs 25 crore to Rs 37.5 crore	Nokia N 73
Between Rs 37.5 crore and Rs 50 crore	HTC Touch
Over Rs 50 crore	BlackBerry
Note: The scheme says if the volumes for the last traded month is already falling in between the qualifying volumes for a particular slab as above, then the trader will be eligible to participate in this contest only if his volume during the offer period falls in the next higher slab. Source: Kotak Commodity

However, those who are regularly generating such high volumes would have to generate additional volumes over and above the slab mentioned to win prizes, says the scheme.

Dilip Bhatia, director Kotak Commodities, said, “All the prizes are sponsored by Kotak Commodities. My sales team has prepared this scheme and it has been launched only after all the necessary approvals have been obtained. It does not refer to any particular exchange.”

Another top broking house is offering to waive its broking fees on two transactions out of every five conducted if the volumes are extremely high. Similarly, one of the big commodity trading firm engaged in the bullion futures trading has decided to offer a gold coin to its big clients during the next three months as a festival offer for additional volume, market sources said.

“Apart from increasing the business for these top brokers, the scheme would also push up the turnover of the national commodity exchanges in the coming months. Trading volume of the national exchanges are definitely increasing as internationally traded commodities such as gold and crude oil are very much volatile this days,” said a leading analyst.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (NMCE) are the three main bourses for commodity trading in the country. Jignesh Shah-promoted MCX, however, has a lion’s share of volume. Roughly 70 per cent of commodities trades in the country are conducted on MCX.

In July 2008, the total trading volume in the country went up to Rs 500,000 crore from Rs 270,000 crore in the same period last year.

MCX alone has registered about Rs 443,000 crore, up from Rs 206,000 crore in the same period last year. NCDEX, the second largest exchange, generated about Rs 64,750 crore (Rs 65,185 crore).

Both MCX and NMCE are in the process of raising money for their expansion activities. While MCX plans to tap capital markets to raise around Rs 600-700 crore, NMCE has privately placed its stake with Reliance Money and the Bombay Stock Exchange.