Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Morethan 75,000 trading accounts were opened on the derivatives market as of theend of June, officials announced on July 25.

The figure was up 30 percent fromthe end of 2018. The average number of futures contracts traded in each sessionin June reached nearly 100,000.

After its launch in August 2017,the derivatives market has been warmly welcomed by investorsseeking opportunities to trade VN30-Index futures contracts whenever thecommon stock market gets into uncertain territory, according to Le Trong Minh, Editor-in-chief of Dau Tu (Investment)newspaper.

The derivatives market has helpedinvestors hedge risks, kept money on the equities market, allowedinvestors to seek short-term profits and stabilised the common stock market.

However, there have been someproblems with the market such as the small number of institutional investorsjoining the derivatives market, high volatility and a lower-than-expectednumber of transactions.

As the Government wants theVietnamese equities market to reach 100 percent of Vietnam’s gross domesticproduct (GDP) by 2020 and the number of active investors accounts for 3 percentof the population, a mechanism needs to be developed to foster professionalinvestors, said Pham Thi Thuy, director of virtual derivatives market projectat VPBank Securities (VPBS).

To help individual investorssharpen their knowledge, skills and understanding of the derivatives market, Dau Tu newspaper and VPBS will launcha contest on virtual derivatives trading from August 1 to July 31, 2020.

Contestants will be able tocompete on a virtual trading platform provided by VPBS. Awards will be givenweekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly for investors with the best profit andthe highest number of futures contracts traded, along with a lucky draw.

The total value of prizes is 1.1billion VND (47,300 USD) for 654 awards. The highest-valued award is 200million VND and will be given to the investor with the best trading profit ofthe year.

The contest will help investorsshare their ideas, knowledge and skills as well as provide training for allcontestants, Minh said.

Each investor will receive aninitial 100 million VND when registering in the virtual trading contest. Thevirtual trading platform can be downloaded from the Apple Store and GooglePlay.-VNS/VNA