Comexes escape meltdown

Barring nominal declines in a few commodities, the national commodity exchanges remained insulated to the panic that gripped the country's stock markets.

Heavy selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pushed the BSE Sensex down by 7.14 per cent (1,408.35 points) to 17,605.35, with the stock market losing about Rs 5,00,000 crore of market capitalisation.

On the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), regional commodities including chana, mentha oil and potato moved 3 per cent up, while a few including global and national ones slumped in excess of 3.5 per cent.

Stock market sentiments were bound to affect the commodities market also as traders tend to book profit from wherever possible, irrespective of fundamentals, said Naveen Mathur, the head of commodities at Angel Broking.

The far and near-month contracts of gold declined by 1 per cent with February futures closing at Rs 11,082 per 10 grams and March futures closing at Rs 11,156 per 10 grams. The February contract of crude oil slid 1.24 per cent to Rs 3,496 a barrel while the July contract fell 2.57 per cent to close at Rs 3,481 a barrel.

In contrast, chana gained up to 1 per cent across all contracts, mentha oil went up to 2 per cent and potato perked up by 3 per cent. The near-month contract of chana closed at Rs 2,213 a quintal, mentha oil closed at Rs 439 a kg and potato for May delivery ended at Rs 580 a quintal.

On the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), however, jeera across all futures hit the lower circuit with pepper for March delivery following suit.

The near-month jeera contract closed at Rs 10,715 a quintal, while the near-month chana ended the day at Rs 2,246 a quintal. Pepper, meanwhile, closed at Rs 14,665 a quintal.