The Hindu Business Line : Downtrend persists in pepper futures

Advertisement

Kochi Feb. 23 Pepper futures market continued its declining trend on Friday on reports of possible stoppage of futures trading in the commodity following the highly speculative activities resulting in high fluctuations without any rime or reason. This phenomenon has influenced the domestic demand also which has slowed down, market observers told Business Line.

Trading sources here argued that stopping futures trading in pepper, which had been going on for several decades, was not in the interest of pepper economy and, instead, the Government should bring in stringent controls on the functioning of the national exchanges.

Intra-day trading, cash transactions, and the daily volume of turnover, warehouse storage facility, net open position and stocks held by the exchanges and so on, need to be looked into, they pointed out.

In the international market, no activity is reported from all other origins. Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil markets would be reopened on Monday, they said.

On NCDEX, March contract fell by Rs 142 a quintal to close at Rs 12,422 on Friday from Rs 12,564 on Thursday. The drop in other positions was from Rs 125 to Rs 156 a quintal.

On NMCE, the March contract dropped by Rs 186 a quintal to close on Friday at Rs 11,850 from Rs 12,036 on Thursday. The fall in other positions was from Rs 117 to Rs 299 a quintal.

The total turnover on NCDEX increased by 2,544 tonnes to 26,550 tonnes, while on the NMCE it moved up by 1,376 tonnes to 6,019 tonnes.

The total open interest on NCDEX on Friday declined by 95 tonnes to 29,882 tonnes. The March position fell by 598 tonnes to 14,407 tonnes, while the April position was up by 29 tonnes to 8,454 tonnes.

On NMCE, the total open interest declined by 85 tonnes to 5,075 tonnes, of which, the March position stood at 4,060 tonnes.

The spot prices, however, ruled steady at Rs 11,600 (un-garbled) and Rs 12,200 (MG 1) a quintal on Friday.