India raises margins on gold futures - regulator

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India, the world's biggest buyer of gold, raised the initial margin on gold futures to 5 percent from 4 percent for domestic traders effective Monday, the market regulator said on Friday.

The Forward Markets Commission's (FMC) move comes after gold prices rose 18 percent to reach a record high earlier this week.

The FMC, which regulates the commodity futures market in India, also imposed an additional 5 percent margin on gold, silver and crude oil futures contracts from Monday.

The Multi Commodity Exchange, where most gold futures trading takes place in India, records a daily volume of 28.8 tonnes on an average.

 

(Reporting by Siddesh Mayenkar; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)