Operations of MCX
The Multi Commodity Exchange of India, more popularly known as MCX India, is the leading exchange where the futures in various commodities can be traded much like the futures in shares and currency are traded in conventional stock exchanges. This has been established to ensure that the operations of the online trading, clearing and settling for the commodities can be done without any problem.
This exchange was started in November 2003 and since then has garnered the share of over 80% in the futures contracts for the commodities market in India. Foreign operators and domestic operators can trade on the various commodities through this platform. The most traded commodity is gold after which silver is the second most traded commodity on the exchange. The turnover for the exchange was US$ 1.24 trillion in 2009. People from over 800 towns and cities in India can facilitate their trading through the 126,000 trading terminals that are currently available.
The commodities that are traded include Metals, Bullion, Fiber, Energy, Spices, Plantations, Pulses, Petrochemicals, Oil and Oil Seeds, Cereals and Others. Traders in commodities can utilize the MCX online chart and look at the performance in terms of the value live on the screen. The MCX online charts help traders to book their profits and control their losses. These charts show the progress of the commodities on the chart and the prices are given in every half an hour. The MCX market watch is a chart that shows the contracts that are due to expire in the coming months and the price at which the commodity opened and closed and the changes that it made during the day. The MCX market watch changes continuously.
The market data section of the MCX charts shows the historical data, spot market price, most active contract, top gainers/ losers, trade verifications, index history and DDR for the various commodities that are traded on the exchange. To trade on the MCX, a person needs to become the member of MCX.
International and domestic alliances of the exchange
It also has alliances with various other commodities exchange markets globally such as ‘London Metal Exchange, The Baltic Exchange, Shanghai Futures Exchange, New York Mercantile Exchange, Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX). Within the Indian markets MCX has alliances with ‘Bombay Metal Exchange, Pulses Importers Association, and Solvent Extractors Association of India’.
Current market scenario and investment through MCX
As precious metals such as gold and silver are gaining new highs , traders can look at the historical data and correlate it with the current MCX silver chart and MCX silver rates, to see whether they would benefit in the future on the contracts that they have already booked. As has been seen, traders are finding that the contracts that they have booked are turning out to be quite lucrative for them, as the appreciation of gold and silver continues. Globally MCX ranks as the No 1 in Silver, No 2 in Gold, Copper & Natural Gas and No 3 in Crude Oil in terms of the futures that were executed in 2010.
