India Exchanges find New Investors
It is generally noticed by the whole world when the billionaire investor, George Soros makes a bet. This time he is in news as he is all set to buy the 4% stake in Bombay Stock Exchange currently held by Dubai Holding. This marks a very good bet on the story of the Indian Exchange which is finally getting some well deserved attention. The new affair with the exchange of India continues as the London Stock Exchanges and the National Stock Exchange have agreed through a letter of intent to assess strategic business opportunities and also work towards greater co-operation in the future.
The first idea to be explored by the two will be the FTSE group licensing to NSE, the FTSE 100 Index while S & P CNX Nifty also known as the Nifty 50 will be licensed by NSE to LSE for trading and issuing options along with other contracts related to indices. George Osborne, the UK Chancellor rang the opening bell that started the trading day for the BSE. The same week, earlier, Eurex which is the derivatives wing of Deutsche Borse said that trading would start on its platform in October for options and futures in the Sensex which is BSE's blue chip index.
The attention coming to India is not only because of the size of the markets but also because of the trends that have influenced Europe and US. These trends include competition between the venues for trading and the advances in technology rapidly made allowing high frequency and algorithmic traders to make new inroads into the markets. There are similar data centers in the London Exchange, US futures exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The NSE in March had signed with CME a cross listing agreement according to which the Indian benchmark index Nifty 50 will be available to CME for dollar denominated futures' listing of futures contract denominated in rupees.
