- Total contracts reach 3.69 mln in the first half
- Daily average volume up 90 pct year-on-year to 30,997 contracts
- Volume seen higher in H2 after extending trading hours
- Plans to launch crude oil futures in Q4
The Thailand Futures Exchange PCL (TFEX) said that its first-half derivatives daily average volume was 30,997 contracts, up 90.19 percent from a year earlier. Total volume reached 3.69 million contracts in the first half of this year, helped by increasing futures products, evening trade, marketing and educating investors.
TFEX, a unit of The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), plans to launch crude oil futures in the fourth quarter of this year.
“We are asking for approval to introduce crude oil futures from the Securities and Exchange Commission. We believe the oil futures should easily draw interest from investors because it will help investors boost profitability and mange risk,” said TFEX Managing Director Kesara Manchusree. “We are now working on educating investors in this new product.”
From January to June, TFEX had 102,946 outstanding contracts from 50,885 accounts. The all-time daily high was 90,026 contracts on June 27, 2011. SET 50 Index futures, gold futures and single stock futures were among the most popular futures products, accounting for 43 percent, 31 percent and 23 percent of the total trading volume, respectively.
The evening trading for gold and silver futures has been hugely successful since it started operating on June 20, with average volume representing 48 percent of the 19,158 total gold and silver futures daily trading volumes.
During the first six months, the 16 new single stock futures were launched all in March, while silver futures, which commenced trading in June, also contributed an impressive performance, Kesara concluded.
The top five derivatives brokers in terms of descending volume were Globlex Securities, Phillip Securities (Thailand), KGI Securities (Thailand), Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) Securities, and Trinity Securities. They have a combined trading volume of 39.26 percent of the total. Of that, trading via internet accounted for 28.07 percent.