Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Trading liquidity on the derivatives market has fallenfor the past five sessions after the new trading fees came into effect onFebruary 15.

OnFebruary 21, a total of 90,354 futures contracts based on the blue-chip VN30Index were traded on the Hanoi Stock Exchange’s derivative market.

Thefigure was down 9.5 percent from the previous session and down nearly 27 percentfrom the number recorded on February 14, just one day before the new tradingfees were applied.

Sincenew trading fees were applied on February 15, the derivatives market’s totaltrading volume reached more than 438,200 futures contracts and the figure hasdecreased by nearly 2 percent from the number of 447,000 contracts recorded inthe previous four trading days.

Theaverage trading volume of futures contracts traded on February 11-14 was111,000 contracts per session while the figure recorded on February 15-21 wasonly 87,650 contracts per session.

OnFebruary 15, investors were charged three new fees when making derivativetrades, which are the derivative trading fee (paid to the stock exchange), andderivative position management and collateral management fees (paid to theVietnam Securities Depository).

Allthree kinds of fee are collected by brokerage firms. Among them, the positionmanagement fee must be paid to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) wheninvestors trade overnight open interest (OI). The collateral management fee ispaid when investors deposit their margin-lending money at VSD.

Thefees range from 400,000 VND (17 USD) to 2 million VND (86 USD) each month.

Thenew fees are among the major factors that have dragged the derivatives marketdown since February 15 as investors have turned to the common stock market.

Accordingto some brokerage firms, investors see their collateral money, which isdeposited at VSD, as termless bank saving. There is no need for VSD to collectthe collateral management fee from investors, which will keep investors awayfrom making overnight trading and long-term investment in derivatives.

SaiGon-Hanoi Securities (SHS) said in a daily report last week that money tendedto flow back to the common stock market from the derivatives market asinvestors would be less interested in futures contracts with the introductionof three new fees.

Thedecline of the derivatives market has been the major reason for the improvementof the common stock market in recent days.

Thebenchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange ended February 21 at987.57 points, having jumped nearly 3.9 percent since February 15 with tradingvolume each day ranging from 170.8 million shares to 232 million shares.

Sinceits launch in August 2017, the Vietnamese derivatives market saw tradingaccounts gaining 3.4 times to more than 57,600 at the end of 2018 with total 19.6million futures contracts being traded, equal to average 78,800 contracts eachsession.-VNS/VNA