Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Agri-Biz & Commodities
-
Commodity Exchanges Industry & Economy - Petroleum Natural gas catches investors' fancy Pratim Ranjan Bose
In the spotlight Registers nine per cent rise in price on July 24. Average turnover close to Rs 100 crore last week. Contracts on `freezes' indicating volatile price movements.
Kolkata , July 25 In the commodity market, the latest love is natural gas. Launched on July 10 on MCX, the Nymex-linked contracts have drawn the attention of investors by virtue of the high degree of price volatility as well as reasonably good liquidity during its brief existence. While market sources expect natural gas contracts to be less volatile in the long run once the initial euphoria is over, there is little doubt that unlike crude oil the underlying conditions now offer adequate scope for speculative as well as arbitrage opportunities in natural gas.
Average turnover
Having registered a modest turnover of Rs 39 crore on the first day of trade, natural gas has registered an average turnover of Rs 76 crore during the last week. The average turnover was close to Rs 100 crore during the greater part of the week between July 17 and July 20. Throughout the week the contracts were repeatedly on `freezes' indicating volatile price movements. It began the current week with a nine per cent price increase on Monday and was subjected to upper freeze soon after opening today.
Increased interest
The interest on natural gas reached a new high on Saturday when someone sold a reasonable quantity at an unexpectedly low price of Rs 330-334 per MBTU (million British thermal unit) on October contract as against the parity price (with Nymex November contract) of Rs 374 per MBTU. The October contract was launched only on the previous day and by selling at such low prices the seller has understandably lost an opportunity to gain a clear Rs 30,000 per lot. While the incident is considered to be a result of lack of knowledge on the part of the seller, only a handful of alert fund managers made the killing. The transaction caught the market on `lower freeze'.
More Stories on : Commodity Exchanges | Petroleum
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2006, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|