Bahrain Financial Exchange (BFX), the first multi-asset exchange in the Mena region, said it reached a major milestone with the cumulative (single-side) trading turnover value crossing the $1 billion mark this month.

Announcing the record growth, BFX said the turnover reached the billion dollar mark on April 24 less than six months since the launch – with the total cumulative trading volume increasing to 24,046 contracts.

The highest (single-side) daily trading turnover was $58.27 million, with a trading volume of 1,189 contracts achieved on the April 23. The cumulative trading turnover of the BFX Futures reached the first $500 million milestone in 92 trading days; whereas, the next $500 million was achieved in the subsequent 16 trading days, said the bourse.

This indicates the growth in the momentum of the trading activity, largely due to the narrow bid-ask spread and higher liquidity, said a top official.

'We are proud to exceed the $1 billion total trading turnover volume mark. Witnessing such a remarkable growth represents a concrete proof for the effectiveness of our offerings across all the products,' said a delighted Arshad Khan, the managing director and CEO of the BFX and the BFX Clearing and Depository Corporation (BCDC).

'Moreover, we see this milestone as a direct result of our extensive business development initiatives cross all the Mena markets, and our ability to play a key role in directing the region towards a leading position in the fast growing financial markets,' he stated.

'While continuing to grow our business, we will persist on drawing the world’s attention to our market via our unique and fully automated trading platform offering multi-asset financial instruments across conventional and Islamic finance product portfolio,'  he added.

The trading turnover for the period between April 1 to 24 was $523.44 million, an 11 times increase over the corresponding period in December last year. During the same period, the trading volume increased around 10 times, from 1,170 contracts to 11,150 contracts.

Since its launch date, the BFX Gold Futures contract has traded over 11.96 metric tonnes with a trading turnover of $640.47 million (12,021 contracts). Trading on the BFX Gold Futures increased by 13.38 times for the period between April 1 and 24 as compared to the corresponding period in December 2011.

The total cumulative trading turnover on the BFX Euro Futures reached $263.23 million (8,003 contracts). Over 4,340,000 million British thermal units (mmBtu) of the BFX Natural Gas Futures (trading turnover of $10.87 million; volume of 1,736 contracts) have been traded.

According to Khan, the cumulative trading turnover on the BFX Indian Rupee Index Futures – a unique and innovative product – has already reached $116.69 million (volume of 2,286 contracts) in a mere 31 trading days.

The BFX Gold Futures contributed to over 62.11 per cent of the total cumulative trading turnover and 49.99 per cent of the total trading volume. The next most popular product was the BFX Euro Futures accounted for 25.53 per cent of the total trading, he added.-TradeArabia News Service