Debt market turnover drops by 44.5% in Jan

The wholesale debt market (WDM) segment on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) has reported a 44.5 per cent decline in turnover in January 2004.

This is the third consecutive month that the segment has reported a fall in turnover.

The segment had registered a 38.8 per cent drop in turnover in November, 2003, and 48.1 per cent in December, 2003.

In January 2004, the debt turnover slipped to Rs 77,533 crore from Rs 1,39,718 crore in January 2003. With this, the cumulative turnover between April 2003 and January 2004 rose by 19.7 per cent to Rs 11,32,840 crore from Rs 9,46,742 crore in April 2002-January 2003.

Mutual funds' investment in the debt market was down by 6.69 per cent to Rs 8,637.40 crore in January 2004 as against Rs 9,256.50 crore in January 2003, while the FIIs also reduced their investment to Rs 216.70 crore in January 2004 compared with Rs 513.20 crore in January 2003.

The number of trades slumped to 11,407 in January 2004 from 21,335 in January 2003.

The average daily turnover dropped by 42.4 per cent to Rs 2,982 crore from Rs 5,175 crore.

During the month, the major volume was driven by the central government paper 7.49 per cent maturing in 2017 (Rs 8,755 crore), followed by 8.07 per cent 2017 paper (Rs 8,650 crore), 7.46 per cent 2017 paper (Rs 8,040 crore), 6.25 per cent 2018 paper (Rs 6,150 crore) and 7.40 per cent 2012 paper (Rs 3,975 crore).