Are you ready? Bursa Malaysia's Currently is rising.

Bursa Malaysia Bhd. said third-quarter net profit more than doubled year-to-year because of better performance in the stock-derivative markets.

Trading volumes accelerated this year as Asian stock markets hit records or multiyear highs, and the company expects the stock and derivatives markets to continue to be resilient and sustain its financial performance in the fourth quarter.

"For the rest of the year, we will focus on rolling out a number of initiatives across the market," Bursa Malaysia Chief Executive Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said.
For the third quarter, net profit surged to 56 million ringgit ($16.6 million) from 25.1 million ringgit, while revenue rose 80% to 122.3 million ringgit, the Malaysian stock-exchange operator said.

The velocity -- the rate at which shares changed hands -- in the stock market was 50% in the third quarter, up from 27% a year earlier, Bursa Malaysia said. The daily average trading value was 2.1 billion ringgit compared with 800 million ringgit.

The total number of derivatives contracts traded in the third quarter was 1.6 million, compared with 1.2 million, resulting in a 17% year-to-year increase in trading revenue from the derivatives market.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, net profit rose to 191.1 million ringgit, from 79.5 million ringgit a year earlier, while revenue climbed to 388.8 million ringgit from 217.2 million ringgit.
This puts Bursa Malaysia on track to meet Thomson Financial's consensus 2007 net-profit estimate of 245.83 million ringgit, analysts said.

Daily average trading value in the stock market reached 2.5 billion ringgit for the nine months, compared with one billion ringgit the year earlier, Bursa Malaysia said.

Since the end of last year, Bursa Malaysia's shares have risen 64% as of Thursday, outperforming a 26% gain in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange's benchmark composite index in the same period.

(Source: WSJ News: 12 Oct, 2007)