Sunday, November 9, 2008

Chairman of the Indian "Forwards Markets Commission" Says Commodity Trading Suspension Should End

According to Chairman of the Forwards Markets Commission (FMC) in India, B.C. Khatua, he expects the current suspension of trading of commodity futures on potatoes, rubber, chana and soyoil to end on November 30.

“We will be making a submission of our analysis on the suspension to the government in the coming weeks. Our preliminary study indicates that easing inflation especially in food commodities makes the situation favourable to restart futures in these commodities,” said Khatua.

The reason behind the suspension was the misguided idea that futures markets were being manipulated by traders, even though there isn't a shred of evidence it's true.

If India wants to emerge as a predictable, reliable commodities market, they can't suspend trading on existing commodities just because the price of food increases.

In a number of cases traders have been fined because of gains they made in their trading on Indian commodity exchanges.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a need to improve transparency across all commodity exchanges and to remove barriers to trade commodities that exist at present.

With the huge challenges now facing policymakers after the global credit crisis, there is a need to rebuild the global fnancial architecture in a sort of Bretton Woods 2 declaration.

Along with an urgent need to strengthen capital adequacy requirements for banks is the need to tighten up the laissez faire approach to commodities regulation.

Inevitably the use of electronic trading platforms will lead to an exponential growth in the number of smaller traders in commodities, and with this should be a step towards more effective, accountable and transparent commodity market regulations.

Anonymous said...

There is a need to improve transparency across all commodity exchanges and to remove barriers to trade commodities that exist at present.

With the huge challenges now facing policymakers after the global credit crisis, there is a need to rebuild the global fnancial architecture in a sort of Bretton Woods 2 declaration.

Along with an urgent need to strengthen capital adequacy requirements for banks is the need to tighten up the laissez faire approach to commodities regulation.

Inevitably the use of electronic trading platforms will lead to an exponential growth in the number of smaller traders in commodities, and with this should be a step towards more effective, accountable and transparent commodity market regulations.