Trading activity on SGX slows month-on-month in Oct, but up from year ago

THE daily average turnover of securities traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) fell 7 per cent month-on-month in October, while total derivatives volume dropped 19 per cent over the same period, the market operator announced on Thursday.

The daily average value of traded stocks in October declined to S$1.0 billion from September, although the average daily volume of shares rose 19.9 per cent to 1.7 billion shares. On a year-on-year basis, however, the daily average value was up one per cent while volume rose 13 per cent.

The total market turnover in October was S$20.4 billion.

Turnover velocity, a gauge of how often each share is traded on average, slipped five percentage points to 39 per cent in October from 44 per cent the month before.

October was also a quiet month for the primary stock market, with new listings or reverse takeovers.

The derivatives market also saw a slowdown in activity from September. The total average daily trading volume fell 16.1 per cent to 594,470 contracts over the month of October, although the mean was up 10 per cent from a year ago. Total trading volume in October was 11.3 million contracts.

The number of overnight positions on the market picked up, however, with open interest gaining about 5.6 per cent month-on-month to 3.5 million positions.

The most popular equity index contracts in October were the China A50, Nikkei 225 and CNX Nifty index futures.