NCEL's remarkable year on year growth in 2010 has further picked up speed in the new Year. After the previous monthly milestone, reached in November 2010, of more than 100,000 contracts traded at the exchange, NCEL has very rapidly achieved the next milestone. In January 2011, a total of 159,469 contracts were traded with a total value of Rs 44.5 billion.
This marks a positive beginning to the year 2011 and business is expected to continue to grow rapidly. This growth has become possible because of increased investor interest, which follows from a better understanding and awareness of the benefits of a regulated futures market. Commodities, as an asset class, are now well established globally and are now finding their rightful place in the investment portfolios of domestic investors also.
This is reflected in a comparison of the business volumes of NCEL vis a vis the stock exchanges in Pakistan. NCEL is the largest exchange in Pakistan in terms of its membership with more than 310 members and the second largest in terms of business volumes after the Karachi Stock Exchange. In January 2010, NCEL's trade value of Rs 3,145,020,155 was only 1.8 % of the KSE's traded value of Rs 163,657,691,294. By January 2011, while KSE's trade values moved up marginally to Rs 166,472,091,088 NCEL, with a trade value of Rs 44,475,834,714 was a significant 26% of the KSE's traded value.
"It is encouraging to see the sustained rise in NCEL trading volumes," said Samir Ahmed, MD and CEO National Commodity Exchange Limited, "and we expect to see this trend continuing strongly with greater participation from individual and institutional investors as the product range grows during this year."-PR
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