Monday, September 1, 2008

The Indian Financial Markets Another Momentous Step - 1 Sep 08

On 29th August 2008, the Indian financial markets took another momentous step towards further liberalization with the launch of currency futures trading on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE). The trading opened at 9 am Friday and while spreads were wide in the first 5 minutes, they soon narrowed once orders started flowing from more number of participants.While according to the international experience, currency futures in most developed markets are not a significant proportion of the OTC markets, in India the scenario may well unfold in a different manner. The dichotomy in the documentary/regulatory requirements between the OTC and exchange traded markets (e.g. no requirement for underlying in futures) enables the futures market to build up as an alternative investment avenue. The first client deal from ICICI Bank was done with Infosys Technologies Limited, where Infosys sold 100 contracts of September, 2008 end maturity.

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