FX Futures Off to Flying Start at SGX – Overall Volumes in the Green

Singapore’s largest financial trading exchange, the Singapore Exchange (SGX), has seen good trading performance across all asset classes in November. During the month, the bourse launched currency futures in the Indian rupee and Chinese yuan as well as other emerging market FX pairs, which were taken up by participants. Volumes across the major asset classes including equities and derivatives, saw sharp increases from figures reported a year earlier.

The new futures contracts were launched on the 11th of November and data from the exchange shows over five thousand contracts exchanged hands at SGX.

Operating Metrics

Derivatives

• Derivatives volume rose 23% year-on-year to 8.9 million contracts.
• Open interest at end-November rose 54% from a year earlier to a record 4.0 million contracts.
• China A50 futures volume rose 92% to 2.3 million contracts, MSCI Taiwan futures trading declined 6% to 1.5 million contracts, while Nikkei 225 futures trading increased 14% to 2.4 million contracts. The MSCI Indonesia futures volume more than doubled to 30,708 contracts.
• SGX introduced Asian foreign exchange futures for Asian currencies from 11th of November, trading a total of 5,552 contracts for the month.

Securities

• Value of securities traded was $19.5 billion, down 30% from $27.8 billion last year; daily average value of securities traded declined to $927 million from $1.3 billion.
• A total of 57 bonds raising $11.3 billion were listed. The biggest debt listed was Singapore Housing Development Board’s $1.5 billion fixed rate notes due 2017.
• There were 3 new IPOs in November raising $2.7 billion.

OTC Clearing

• A total $4.1 billion notional of new OTC financial derivatives transactions were cleared, up 52% year-on-year.
• Volume of OTC commodities cleared increased 35% year-on-year to 38,033 contracts.
• Volume of iron ore swaps cleared increased 75% from a year earlier to 36,611 contracts.
• SICOM rubber futures volume increased 58% from a year earlier to 23,732 contracts.

Singapore’s multi asset exchange, SGX, has been battling with neighbouring exchanges to be the preferred destination for Indian and Chinese instruments. The take up of FX futures signifies the importance of risk management products for corporate in these nations.