Asia's key markets continue to diversify - FOW panel

Asia’s largest financial markets continue to diversify and develop, presenting opportunities for international investors and traders, a panel of experts has told a conference.

Speaking at the FOW Trading Amsterdam conference on Wednesday, a panel of Asia trading experts discussed the latest themes in some of Asia’s largest and most attractive markets.

William Fyfe, a senior vice president at KGI Securities Singapore, a broker, told the delegation: “The original financial market of Asia was Japan and that interest is really starting to come back. The Nikkei 225 has held strong value over the past year and there are some tax changes that have driven the local investor base to start to get involved in the equity market there.”

Fyfe told the conference there were also signs of life in the Japanese fixed income market after the Japanese central bank increased interest rates last month for the first time since 2007.

Yiping Yang, the associate director of the International Cooperation Department at Shanghai Futures Exchange, said the onshore Chinese commodity derivatives market remains vast and diverse.

She told the conference: “We will continue to expand the investment scope of commodity futures to overseas investors. Currently, we have 24 international products and 46 available to QFIIs but that is still less than half of the commodity futures and options available in the market so there is still a lot of potential for further opening up.”

Rutesh Durve, director of Business Development and Relationship Management at Nuvama Asset Services, said that, while India is perceived as complicated and difficult to access, there are different routes to market such as trading through an onshore broker or an international firm that has a presence in India. Durve said: “At some point, India becomes large enough that you need someone onshore.”

Asian exchanges hosted eight of the top ten best new futures and options contracts launched in the last quarter of 2023, according to a new report released last month.

Hong Kong and Australia’s biggest exchanges reported year-on-year declines in March trading volume, as a mixed picture in futures and options led to a slowdown in Asia Pacific activity.