The Winnipeg Commodity Exchange is hoping new products and more rain will turn around the sputtering volume in its futures and options contracts.
“We want to look at putting new products in the agricultural area into the mix,” said incoming board chair Bill Parrish Jr., who is also president of grain company Parrish and Heimbecker Ltd.
“Growth is the key. We’ve been slipping in volumes and we have to try to grow this exchange.”
Parrish and incoming vice chair Lorne DeJaeger of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce were elected by other directors after the WCE Holdings Inc. annual meeting.
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The exchange is now a private company. Two years ago it demutualized, converting from a co-operative type organization that was owned by its users into a for-profit company owned by shareholders.
Since demutualizing, the exchange has not prospered. Two small prairie crops in a row have badly hurt futures and options trade in the WCE’s smaller, more commercially traded contracts.
Canola volumes have also declined, but not by as much, because speculative trade has filled some of the gap left by grain companies and commercial users who have not needed to hedge as many grain purchases and sales.
Parrish said he thinks a normal crop in 2003 would help some of the exchange’s sagging contracts.
“More grain means more activity for us,” said Parrish.
The exchange also intends to introduce new contracts and risk management instruments, such as the Exchange For Risk allowance recently announced, Parrish said.
