Potato futures corrected consecutively for the the second day on Thursday on account of long liquidation and rumours of a possible ban in futures trading in some agricultural commodities and settled 0.52% lower in the may contract while the spot settled 0.73% higher due to demand in the domestic/wholesale markets.
Demand can be seen at lower levels as traders anticipate the output to be lower than the government’s estimates.
As per a circular issued by NCDEX dated April 10, 2012, A Minimum Initial Margin of 10% of the value of the contract or VaR based margin, whichever is higher, will be imposed on all running contracts and yet-to-be-launched contracts of potato with effect from beginning of trading day Thursday, April 12, 2012.
It is clarified that the Special Margins, Additional Margins or any other margins levied shall be over and above the revised Minimum Initial Margin Production Scenario.
The cold storages are said to be full to the extent of 95% of their capacity. The market participants expected the production to cross last year’s levels, but now they expect the production to fall from last year.
According to National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF), potato output in the season 2011-12, is estimated higher at 43.6 mn tn compared to 40 mn tn last year.
However, markets are expecting further decline in output due to late blight disease by 20%.
The output in UP and West Bengal, the two biggest potato growing states, is expected to be lower at 12.8 mn tn (13.6 mn tn in 2011) and 10-15% (13.3 mn tn in 2011) respectively.