Comexes see first dip in turnover this year

Turnover on the country’s three national futures exchanges declined 3.5 per cent in November this year because of the falling global commodity prices. This is the first ever decline in turnover this year and perhaps since the commencement of trading in 2003.

The three national commodity exchanges, including the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX), the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the National Multi-Commodity Exchange (NMCE) have seen its total value of trade at Rs 3,31,967.09 crore in November this year compared to Rs 3,33,655.38 crore in the corresponding month last year.

The three aforementioned exchanges constitute over 95 per cent of the value of trade in futures market in India.

The turnover on NCDEX declined over 36 per cent to Rs 26,451.37 crore from Rs 41,379.42 crore because of the suspension in highly-traded commodities including soy oil and chana. Now, the exchange hopes to recover the value of business with the restoration of future trading in these commodities.

Value of agricultural commodities trade on NCDEX slipped from Rs 34,642.68 crore to Rs 22,889.85 crore while that of non-agri commodities fell from Rs 6,736.74 crore to Rs 3,561.52 crore.

Early this week, exchanges applied for fresh approval for launching soy oil, chana, potato and natural rubber immediately after the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), the commodity markets regulator, hinted the lifting of suspension. Exchanges are preparing to re-launch contracts in suspended commodities immediately as the regulator is all set to send approval this week.

“Turnover of commodity exchanges has declined a modest 3.5 per cent despite prices of agri and non-agri commodities have fell dramatically 50-60 per cent across the sector. This means exchanges succeeded in attracting more participation during the period,” said Kishore Narne, Research head of Anand Rathi Commodities.

Meanwhile, the country’s largest commodity exchange MCX witnessed a negligible fall of 0.15 per cent at Rs 2,89,824.94 crore in November 2008 as against Rs 2,90,250.38 crore in the comparable month last year. Trading in agri commodities fell about 80 per cent to Rs 1,323.81 crore from Rs 6,043.18 crore. In contrast, turnover in non-agri commodities shot up to Rs 2,88,501.13 crore in November 2008 from Rs 2,84,207.20 in Nov 2007.

According to Jayant Manglik, head — Commodities Business of Religare Commodities, however, feels that commodity business has doubled in the past 11-month as commodity exchanges maintained the growth in turnover.