The Sibiu Monetary-Financial and Commodities Exchange, the only regulated market in Romania where derivatives are traded, posted a nominal traded volume of more than 200 million euros (720.5 million RON), exceeding the traded volume on the Bucharest Stock Exchange for the first time ever.
The traded value on the BSE in July stood at 163 million euros (583m RON), in addition to almost 20 million euros (70m RON), accounting for the volume of transactions on RASDAQ.
Whereas the Stock Exchange was not that busy in July because of the holidays, and to the poor performance in the previous months, investors were more active in Sibiu because of the high volatility, which created opportunities for profit both from intra-day speculations and from arbitrage operations.
"July was the best month ever for the Sibiu Exchange. This is largely due to the introduction of long maturities of 9 and 12 months on July 1, as well as to the high volatility on the market, which created real arbitrage opportunities for investors," stated Radu Luca, economist with the Sibiu Exchange.
The total value of the contracts traded on the Sibiu Exchange in the first seven months of this year amounts to approximately 950 million euros (3.37 billion RON).
As a comparison, the transactions conducted on the Bucharest Stock Exchange since the beginning of the year amounted to about 1.47 billion euros (5.24 billion RON).
However, the amount of money actually changing hands on the Sibiu Exchange is much smaller, because of the margin trading, which allows investors to immobilise only a fraction of the contracts they buy.
"The value of the contracts closed represents a nominal volume.
"The money that actually changes hands around here accounts for 10% to 20% of this amount," Luca explained.
In spite of this though, the increase of the Sibiu Exchange has been spectacular over the past year. More than 1.92 million futures and options contracts have been registered on this market since the beginning of the year, 16.5 times more compared with the total in the same time last year. The activity of the Sibiu Exchange went through the roof in the second half of last year, with the increase in liquidity on the market attracting more and more investors.
The representatives of the Sibiu Exchange expect the investor interest for the futures market to continue to increase, as should the volumes traded.
"I expect the next few months to be busier, given that the money that left the Bucharest Stock Exchange in the spring is coming back on the market, leading to higher volatility. In addition, the investors that want a professional portfolio management will direct their attention to the Sibiu Exchange," Radu Luca believes.
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