A commodities exchange is an exchange where various commodities and derivatives products are traded. Most commodity markets across the world trade in agricultural products and other raw materials (like wheat, barley, sugar, maize, cotton, cocoa, coffee, milk products, pork bellies, oil, metals, etc.) and contracts based on them. These contracts can include spots, forwards, futures and options on futures. Other sophisticated products may include interest rates, environmental instruments, swaps, or ocean freight contracts. Commodity exchanges are institutions which provide a platform for trading in ‘commodity futures’ just as how stock markets provide space for trading in equities and their derivatives. They thus play a critical role in robust price discovery where several buyers and sellers interact and determine the most efficient price for the product. In India there are 21 regional exchanges and three national level multi-commodity exchanges. After a gap of almost three decades, Government of India has allowed Continue reading
Investment Options
Trading, Clearing and Settlement Transactions at NCDEX
Trading The trading system on the NCDEX provides a fully automated screen based trading for futures on commodities on a nationwide basis as well as online monitoring and surveillance mechanism. It supports an order driven market and provides complete transparency of trading operations. Order matching is essential on the basis of commodity, its price, time and quantity. All quantity fields are in units and price in rupees. The exchange specifies the unit of trading and the delivery unit for futures contracts on various commodities. The exchange notifies the regular lot size and tick size for each of the contracts traded from time to time. When any order enters the trading system, it is an active order. It tries to finds a match on the other side of the book. If it finds a match, a trade is generated. If it does not find a match, the order becomes passive and Continue reading
Types of Credit Derivatives
In finance, a credit derivative is a securitized derivative whose value is derived from the credit risk on an underlying bond, loan or any other financial asset. In this way, the credit risk is on an entity other than the counter-parties to the transaction itself. This entity is known as the reference entity and may be a corporate, a sovereign or any other form of legal entity which has incurred debt. Credit derivatives are bilateral contracts between a buyer and seller under which the seller sells protection against the credit risk of the reference entity. Similar to placing a bet at the racetrack, where the person placing the bet does not own the horse or the track or have anything else to do with the race, the person buying the credit derivative doesn’t necessarily own the bond (the reference entity) that is the object of the wager. He or she Continue reading
Claims in Insurance and Claims Management
Claims in Insurance Definition of claims: Claim is a right of insured to receive the amount secured under the policy of insurance contract promised by Insurer. An insurance claim is the actual application for benefits provided by an insurance company. Policy holders must first file an insurance claim before any money can be disbursed to the hospital or repair shop or other contracted service. The insurance company may or may not approve the claim, based on their own assessment of the circumstances. Individuals who take out home, life, health, or automobile insurance policies must maintain regular payments called premiums to the insurers. Most of the time these premiums are used to settle another person’s insurance claim or to build up the available assets of the insurance company. When claims are filed, the insured has to observe the settled rules and procedures and the insurer has also to reciprocate in a Continue reading
Rights Offering (Issue)
Whenever an existing company wants to issue new equity shares, the existing shareholders will be potential buyers of these shares. Generally the Articles or Memorandum of Association of the Company gives the right to existing shareholders to participate in the new equity issues of the company. This right is known as ‘pre-emptive right’ and such offered shares are called ‘Right shares‘ or ‘Rights issue‘. A rights issue involves selling securities in the primary market by issuing rights to the existing shareholders. When a company issues additional share capital, it has to be offered in the first instance to the existing shareholders on a pro-rata basis. This is required in India under section 81 of the Companies Act, 1956. However, the shareholders may by a special resolution forfeit this right, partially or fully, to enable the company to issue additional capital to public. Under section 81 of the Companies Act 1956, Continue reading
Margin Trading or Buying on Margin
Buying on margin means borrowing money from a broker to purchase stock. Margin trading allows one to buy more stock than normal. To trade on margin an account is required. The margin account is a credit based account. In an account one can avail loan to buy stocks. Marginable securities act as collateral for the loan. Securities traded in the margin account are the marginable securities. Like any other loan there is interest charged on the amount borrowed. One should read the margin agreement and understand its implications. One is required to maintain an equity amount that ranges from 50-90%. This is otherwise called as maintenance margin. There are certain costs included in margin trading. They are trade commissions, and interests charged on margin debt. Interest is calculated daily and debited in the margin account say every 15th of the month. Margin trading offers another avenue to the brokers for Continue reading