SGX commodity activities flourish in February with double-digit volume growth

While securities and derivatives activities decline.

Singapore Exchange (SGX) recorded increases in its commodities trading and clearing activities in February 2014, but suffered a slowdown in securities and derivatives activities.

For the commodities segment, SICOM rubber futures volume increased 23% to 29,891 contracts, while volume of the newly-launched iron ore futures continued to grow, totaling 47,570 contracts. This was up 9% from January 2014.

Volume of iron ore swaps cleared grew 19% to 38,390 contracts while volume of cleared iron ore options more than doubled to 6,804 contracts.

How did the securities and financial derivatives fair? Here's more SGX:

SECURITIES

Securities trading declined 35% to $20.9 billion; daily average value of trading fell 41% to $1.0 billion due to more trading days in February 2013 compared with a year earlier.

On a month-on-month basis, February 2014 securities trading was 7% down while daily average value was 2% lower. February 2014 had one less trading day compared with January 2014.

Bond listings totaled 33 in February, raising $8.9 billion. The biggest bond issues were the EUR1.5 billion convertible perpertual bond from Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA and the US$500 million notes from Indian Railway Finance Corporation and Korea Gas Corporation.

FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES

Derivatives volume fell 7% year-on-year to 8.1 million contracts though open interest rose 6% to 3.3 million contracts at the end of February from a year earlier. Daily average volume of 450,251 was 13% lower due to more trading days in February 2014 from a year earlier.

Total volume was 8% down from January 2014 but daily average volume was 2% up.

China A50 futures trading increased 10% to 1.9 million contracts and Nikkei 225 futures volume fell 28% to 2.4 million contracts.

The MSCI Taiwan futures volume rose 19% to 1.3 million while the Indian Nifty futures trading slid 4% to 1.2 million contracts.

Volume of new OTC financial derivatives transactions cleared was S$5.3 billion, down 15%.