People Trading in East India up by 20 Percent in 2014-15

Kolkata, May 21 (IANS): The National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday said the states in eastern India have witnessed a spurt of nearly 20 percent people actively trading on the bourse since the past year.

In a statement, the bourse said that preliminary data suggested West Bengal added the highest number of clients in the eastern region since May last year. Among the five states in the zone, which also includes the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Odisha has grown at the fastest rate.

Across India, the financial capital Mumbai continues to dominate the trading scenario with Maharashtra accounting for the highest number of active traders and retail investors.

“Total number of people traded in the last one year has surged by about 25 percent on the NSE platform,” the bourse said.

It said while Gujarat had the highest jump of more than 50 percent in value terms, traditional bases for such trades like Kolkata, Delhi and others also reflected growth.

NSE said that the equity market during 2014-15 has remained bullish.

“Nifty, which is the benchmark index for the nation, has given more than 25 percent return to investors. The benchmark index even reached a peak level 9119.2 during the period. This has taken the cash market turnover to a new high of about Rs.18,000 crore a day,” the statement said.

It said apart from market movements, the retail growth in the cash market was also fuelled by 12 IPOs being launched during 2014-15.

“Several offers for sale from companies like Coal India, REC and SAIL have seen good responses from the retail segment,” it said.