Pulses' futures most liquid on MCX

Pulses remained the most liquid contract at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) among agri commodities in the week ending March 2 with urad slipping to Rs 69 per quintal.

The trade sensitive commodity opened at Rs 2,991 per quintal and closed at Rs 2, 922 per quintal after touching Rs 3,047 per quintal in mid-week. 4,40,500 metric tonne of urad was sold in the entire week in total while the open interest surged to 41,510 tonne. Urad witnessed a total turnover of Rs 1268.73 crore in the week.

India offers futures in Burmese urad with total imports of 250,000 tonne as against the country's urad production of 12 lakh tonne.

In contrast, chana March contract shot up Rs 57 to close at Rs 1,861 per quintal. A total of 2,62,770 tonne of chana changed hands amounting to a total value of Rs 498.43 crore.

Tur was another pulse variety which was sold heavily on MCX. A total turnover of Rs 413.08 crore was recorded in tur with a volume of 2,07,150 tonne. June contract of tur eased Rs 7 to close the week at Rs 2,039 per quintal.

Surprisingly, a record 6,290 tonne of tur was sold the last day of the week. Masoor went up by Rs 16 to close the week at Rs 1,730 per quintal with a total turnover of Rs 201.27 crore at a volume of 1,13,070 tonne during the week. Traders sold record 6,780 tonne of masoor on March 2.

MCX witnessed a huge volatility in gold, silver, crude oil, brent crude, urad, refined soy oil, mentha oil, chana copper, tur, masoor, cumin and cotton in the week under consideration.

The exchange recorded a total turnover of Rs 26,363.22 crore with comdex surging to 194.03, a gain of 12.27 points. During the week 10 new contracts for existing commodities were initiated.

The MCX composite index also perked up by 12.27 points to 1912.12 points while agri index slipped 18.58 to 1400.40 points. Energy index slumped 2.45 points to 2324.35 points, metal index rose by 57.84 points to 2011.60 points.

The MCX has declared a sun-outage between 11.05 - 12.20 pm in the period between March 5 - 21. According to the V-Sat service provider, HCL Comnet, of the exchange, members are advised to re-log the site, in case the service is terminated during the sun-outage period.

Apart from this they can connect through traders' work station. Internet, leased line or wireless users' service would not be affected during the period, the exchange sources said.