Bursa Malaysia Derivatives - 5

A Day Without Locals In KLCE

There was a day where all locals stayed away from the cpo futures floor trading:

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This is a page that I got it from the Star Business on Thursaday, September 21, 1999. See what was the total open position? 6,968 contracts as compared to about 180,000 contracts now a day!

What was the volume? 517 lots! What happened to the open outcry floor trading on that day? 

As quoted in the Bernama, the market was dampened by a boycott on Commex when the call by local traders (who trade on their own behalf) for lower fees in the annual subscription was rejected by the Commex board, dealers said. (Commex was the ex-Bursa Malaysia Derivatives that we used to call KLCE before merging. There were names like MME, KLOFFE and MDEX too.)

I think the average daily volume for cpo futures trading was above 1000 lots when I was a floor trader before turning to be a "new and the last" local there, and such a volume was actually more than 50% drop not 35% drop as shown in the paper!

There will be another interesting page about the cpo futures trading floor at that time when all locals stay away from the cpo futures trading pit. It was about the "boycott"! Wait for a next post.

Bursa Malaysia Derivatives - 2

The "Locals" or the so called licensed speculators were given seats by the "ex" Bursa Malaysia Derivatives through the purchasing of trading permits or "memberships" at RM10,000 or RM30,000 in the 1990s when the BMD was mainly from the two separated entities, KLCE and KLOFFE. I was a Local in CPO Futures trading and did pay the RM10,000 to start trading with the trading permit after being interviewed and approved by the Board from KLCE.

Just for a record, the KLCE was last located in DayaBumi Complex near Dataran Merdeka before the open-outcry trading system was ended in December 2001. Here is the sample contract form issued by all floor traders in the cpo futures trading pit. It showed the Alpha code of Seller and Buyer while stating all the contract month in the International code format, price and size with time stamped to confirm the trade was done at the particular time. As shown below, the month codes and trading copies with time stamped on 27 Dec 2001:

	MONTH	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
	CODE	F	G	H	J	K	M	N	Q	U	V	X	Z

KLCE trading contract copies

The yellow copy was the seller's copy and seller must do time stamping once a trade was traded and issued a carbonized trading form that contained total five copies. First original white copy for KLCE, two duplicated yellow copies (for seller's clearing broker and seller) and two duplicated red copies (buyer's clearing broker and buyer).

The "Locals" did enjoy low transaction cost and even zero transaction cost on scratch trades which meant  when they buy and sell price at same price in different transaction in same trading day, they paid zero fee. These scratch trades did save a lot of trading cost especially for locals who active in spread trading while helped increasing the liquidity of the cpo futures market.

Bursa Malaysia Derivatives - 1

Bursa Malaysia Derivatives has become one of the international market place on futures trading benchmark in our global economic system especially on the crude palm oil commodity futures trading which was lunched in early 1980s. By doing a Google search on KLCE, MME, COMMEX, KLOFFE, MDEX and BMD, it is believed that readers will be able to find the history and the "evolution" of Bursa Malaysia Derivatives.

However, the Exchange itself and the speculators who help run them remain largely misunderstood, general thinking, they served no useful function other than a gambling pool being specially set up for those tyranny big boys!

In my first thought, this was actually considered to be a meeting place for gamblers - professional gamblers !!! It was especially true when I first stepped in the pit where the open-outcry crude palm oil futures trading floor located in the Dayabumi Complex near Merdeka Square, Kuala Lumpur in mid 1990s.  

The Exchange had since been transformed into a sophisticated electronic trading market place (year 2000) and partially owned by one of the world largest and busiest Exchanges. You may call it a licensed casino, but the Exchange itself is the real free and "regulated" market place where speculators serve a very important function helping the Exchange to be a well-known "licensed casino", making sure every buyer and seller is part of a pair like socks we wear that creates volumes.

With all the sounds, friends and chaotic trading activities I had missed in KLCE in 1990s, I wish there is a time machine that bring me and you back to learn the "hand signals" to make a trade like other speculators did - they were the "Locals". 

They are the speculators with a mindset of high risk high return, make fortunes or end up broke!