Transactions on the local futures market hit a record high last year, with investors’ enthusiasm for futures trading on the rise after the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) launched massive promotion campaigns, the TAIFEX said.
Statistics compiled by the TAIFEX showed that transactions on the local futures market totaled about 224 million contracts last year, up 32.1 percent from a year earlier. Transactions not only hit their highest level in the history of Taiwan’s futures market, but surpassed 200 million contracts for the first time.
In terms of average daily transactions, the local futures market last year reached 816,174 contracts, up 31.04 percent from a year earlier, the data indicated.
Last year, futures product transactions rose 15.37 percent from a year earlier, while options product transactions grew 38.71 percent year-on-year, according to the statistics.
The TAIFEX said that among the four major categories of products in the local futures market — the TAIEX futures, TAIEX options, mini-TAIEX futures and single stock futures — transactions of single stock futures recorded the highest growth, rising more than 74 percent from a year earlier. Such transactions hit a total of about 9.51 million contracts last year.
The underlying targets of single stock futures are common stocks or exchange-traded funds listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the over-the-counter market.
The TAIEX options came in second in terms of transaction growth last year, with transactions up 38.71 percent from a year earlier to 152 million contracts. The underlying index of TAIEX options is the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index.
The TAIFEX said that the local futures market was in the doldrums in the first half of last year in the wake of depressed trading interest in the spot market. In June, the fluctuation range even hovered at only 48 points, the lowest in the market’s history.
However, trading interest started to pick up in July in concert with the spot market as investors sought hedging in the futures market to push up futures transactions for the whole year, the exchange said.
In addition, the TAIFEX was gearing up in the second half of last year to unveil a series of campaigns to promote futures trading by unveiling new futures products in a bid to attract investors.
Among the newly unveiled futures products were the Taiwan 50 Futures — whose underlying index is the FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 Index, which is comprised of the top-50 large-cap stocks on the main board — and some ETF futures, which feature links with A shares in the China market.
The TAIFEX said that the exchange also made trips overseas to promote the TAIFEX and encourage foreign institutional investors to trade in the local futures market.
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