Guarseed turnover hits new high on MCX

The Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) is gaining momentum in agri commodities, with futures trading in commodities such as mentha oil and potato generating fairly good volume and turnover.

Guarseed futures turnover today hit a new high of Rs 184 crore.

December, January, February and March contracts logged turnover of Rs 44.28 crore, Rs 40.81 crore, Rs 47.03 crore and Rs 51.86 crore, respectively.

Industry sources said till October, the exchange's share was less than 1.5 per cent of the total guarseed futures trade volume. But with the new-found focus on agri products, MCX managed to raise the share sharply to around 20 per cent on Monday.

Traders attribute the success to MCX's robust delivery mechanism and a lower number of delivery disputes in agri commodities. The guarseed traders had definitely taken fancy to the MCX platform, a trader said.

"The processing robustness of the MCX platform is driving up the volume surge," said trader Rajendra Buthra, adding that if the trend continued the exchange would emerge a leading guarseed trading platform.

The current stock in MCX-approved warehouses is around 4,200 tonne, which one-fourth of the total stocks in all exchange-designated warehouses. The open interest on MCX platform is 13,660 tonne, at present.

The commex's highest physical delivery stood at 920 tonne worth Rs 1.72 crore for November 2006 guarseed contract.

At around 10 per cent, margins of both MCX and National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange have remained unchanged over the past five months.