The recently-launched currency futures market has clocked an average daily turnover of nearly Rs 1,000 crore. In the week ended November 7, all the three exchanges — NSE, BSE and MCX-SX — have achieved a total volume of Rs 4,961.45 crore, which means an average daily turnover of Rs 992 crore.
In terms of total volumes, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) leads the race.
In the week under review, NSE remained the market leader with a total turnover of Rs 2,973.23 crore, which is nearly 60 per cent of the market share.
MCX-SX, the capital market arm of India's largest commodity trading platform — the Multi Commodity Exchange — recorded a weekly turnover of Rs 1,873.03 crore (average daily turnover Rs 375 crore), while the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was much behind in the race with a weekly turnover of Rs 15.95 crore.
Total open interest on all the three exchanges is 1,80,970 contracts, while total average daily volume in terms of contract is over 2 lakh. The volume is still very small compared to the average daily volume of $35 billion on currency forward contracts traded in the over the counter (OTC) market.
Meanwhile, the first month comparison between NSE and MCX-SX reveals that the latter has moved faster. The first month average daily turnover of MCX-SX is found to be higher than that of BSE and NSE put together. BSE in the first month reported an average daily turnover of Rs 22.10 crore with a volume of 4,625 lots. Together, BSE and NSE reported an average daily turnover of Rs 282.36 crore as against Rs 349.38 crore reported by MCX-SX.
In both NSE and MCX-SX, membership drive is on with more than 300 members having obtained the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) registration. However, in terms of applications, MCX-SX has received 875, which is highest because of actual commodity hedgers, importers and exporters. About 20 banks are reported to have taken membership of MCX-SX and they collectively have 25 per cent of the total volume. This is important as participation of banks will bring OTC market volume on the exchange's platform. Out of the exchange's 300 members, 222 are active, while the bourse has created 575 user IDs.
NSE began trading in currency futures on August 29 and MCX September 7.
