NSE Currency Futures recieves 70K contracts on first day

Mumbai, Aug 29 (UNI) Currency Futures trade in India commenced with a bang with the National Stock Exchange recieving nearly 70,000 contracts on the opening day, marked by lively trading session.

Flagged off by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, trading in the Currency Futures was upebat throughout the day with thethe bid-ask spread remaining very tight throughout the day at 0.25 paise (1 tick) which was tighter than usual higher spreads of around one paise or higher seen in the forward market, according to the information available on the NSE website.

two other exchanges the MCX and BSE have also been given in principle approval by Securities and Exchanges Board of India to take up Currency futures trading.

The first trade on the exchange was by East India Securities Ltd. While, amongst the bank participants, HDFC Bank carried out the first trade. The largest trade was by Standard Chartered Bank constituting 15000 contracts. Overall, banks contributed 40 per cent of the total gross volume, NSE stated.

Twelve serial month contracts were available for trading, September 2008 to August 2009, in which the most active contract was September 2008 expiry with around 43000 contracts being traded. The near month contract traded at a premium of 0.40 per cent to the spot price, it added.

In all 300 trading members including 11 Banks were registered in this segment. Trading took place from across major centres of the country.

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