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March 08, 2014

 

Press Release No. 1

NSE Organizes Investor Week to Spread Awareness, Empower Market Participants

 

 

March 8, Jaipur: India’s leading exchange, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) organized a week-long Investor awareness drive in Jaipur, from the 3rd of March, to engage with students, Corporates and trade bodies to create awareness among them about the importance of financial planning, the different asset classes available for investing in the stock markets and the need to invest in productive assets.

 

NSE officials conducted awareness sessions with the students of ICFAI (Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India) University, the ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries) Jaipur chapter, FIMDA, which represents fixed income market participants, CA Institute and Corporates.

 

While the sessions focused on different products and asset classes that are available for trading on NSE, in the session with FIMDA there were discussions on the debt segment of NSE and the new offering from NSE, the NSE bond futures. 

 

NSE Bond Futures (NBF II) are futures contracts based on the actively traded GOI security with a coupon rate of 7.16% and another one with 8.83% coupon rate, both maturing in 2023 and are available in the 9 to 10 year maturity segment. 

 

Market participants such as retail investors, banks, primary dealers, mutual funds, insurance companies, FIIs, Corporates and trading members can hedge their interest rate risk by trading in this product. All categories of participants carry interest rate risk. Interest rate risk could arise from loans taken by a corporate entity, institution or an individual.  Similarly investing in fixed income instruments like bonds, fixed deposits or even debt mutual funds creates interest rate exposure.

 

While NSE conducts investor awareness drives in many parts of the country, this week the focus was on Jaipur, one of the three cities in the golden triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, and one of the fastest growing cities in Northern India. The Pink city is also a top tourist destination and has developed into a major commercial and industrial hub. Jaipur is also home to thousands of small scale units in the marble, textile and gems and jewellery sector, producing goods for domestic consumption and exports.

 

The ‘Investor Week’ in Jaipur will conclude with an investor run or ‘Investothon’ on Sunday.

 

Mr. Ravi Varanasi, Chief Business Development, NSE, said, ‘’ through our investor initiatives we would like to empower investors with knowledge of the markets as well help SME’s and other enterprises to raise capital to grow their businesses in the heritage city of Jaipur.’’

 

The sessions conducted by NSE officials educated market participants on various products including Nifty Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), in which an investor can buy one unit in just a little over Rs. 600 (depending on the current value of the index). These funds can be traded just like stocks; their NAV is available real time and have given good returns in the long term.

In recent years, NSE has also been focusing on this region, to encourage good SME’s to come and list on NSE’s SME platform, called Emerge. One of the key companies on Emerge is Veto Switchgears from Jaipur, which is trading above its issue price and had recently also announced a bonus for its shareholders.  EMERGE provides small and medium enterprises the much-needed opportunity to raise capital.

 

Recently the government also allowed SME’s to list cost effectively without an initial public offer or IPO. This can be done on Emerge ITP or Institutional trading platform.

 

EMERGE ITP connects growing businesses to a pool of sophisticated investors such as private equity funds, high net worth individuals (HNI’s) and angel investors looking to invest in early stage ventures. It allows start-ups, young companies and SMEs to list without an initial public offering (IPO), and provides exit to the investors.

 

Addressing the press, NSE’s Chief Business Development, Mr Ravi Varanasi said ‘’Through EMERGE ITP we are bringing together growth companies and risk investors in a well regulated environment enabling both sides to benefit from the discipline and transparency to create a virtuous cycle facilitating flow of risk capital to growth companies. ‘’

 

NSE accords the highest priority to investor awareness and investor protection. The exchange runs 11 Investor service centers in India, including one in Jaipur, for grievance redressal and handling arbitration cases on investor complaints.