THE Association of THE Association of  Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria, ASHON, has concluded plans to float the first privately owned Commodity and Futures Exchange in the country as it commences training to prepare capital market operators for this development.Already, the first series of training for the Commodity and Futures market has been held under its Indian-based technical experts who exposed the operators to the fundamentals of Commodity and Futures Market.Addressing participants at the training,

ASHON’s Chairman, Mr. Patrick Ezeagu, explained that the core objective of the training was to develop the much-needed capacity that would operate in the proposed Commodity and Futures Exchange which ASHON is leading the establishment.Ezeagu noted that every aspect of the capital market has been undergoing changes, hence, the human capital that would operate in the new environment must have the skills.“The market is expanding and the various kinds of market we are operating are equally changing as well. From the purely equities market, we are moving into bonds and from bonds, we are thinking about commodities and derivatives. There is lack of capacity by members of ASHON and we have decided by ourselves that the best approach is to build capacity from within.

We must key into these changes that are taking place and be able to play our role as intermediaries within that market space.“Therefore, this training which focuses on derivatives and commodities is to ensure that we sharpen the skills of our members to trade derivatives as well as commodities, futures, options and the rest of them”, Ezeagu said.Corroborating, one of ASHON’s technical partners, Mr. Subbiah Rajagopa of Chella Private Limited explained that as ASHON would soon commence a specialized exchange, it is necessary to expose its members to the rudiments of commodities and derivatives market.