AGRIDEX
Also written NCDEX AGRIDEX
NCDEX's agricultural commodity index, weighted across ten crops by production and liquidity — discontinued from 1 February 2022 after several of its constituent commodities stopped trading.
In plain language
An index needs stable constituents to mean anything over time. AGRIDEX was NCDEX's attempt to build one broad number representing the agricultural commodity market — a single figure moving up or down instead of ten separate crop prices.
It worked while its constituent crops kept trading. When regulatory action stopped futures trading in several of them, the index lost its foundation and NCDEX withdrew it.
How it works
For 2021, AGRIDEX held ten commodities, weighted by a blend of production value and trading liquidity: Soybean 15.65%, Chana 20.00%, RM Seed 11.81%, Guar Seed 9.38%, Castor 4.34%, COCUD 11.22%, Refined Soy Oil 12.55%, Guar Gum 7.36%, Jeera 4.51% and Turmeric 3.19%.
Calculation and display of the AGRIDEX series were discontinued with effect from 1 February 2022, because trading in many of its constituent commodities had itself been discontinued for regulatory reasons — the index could no longer be built from live, liquid futures prices.
A worked example
A commodity trading advisor benchmarking client portfolios against the broad agri-commodity market in 2021 would have quoted AGRIDEX as the reference figure — much as an equity advisor quotes the Nifty.
By early 2022, that reference disappeared. An advisor who had continued to benchmark against AGRIDEX after 1 February 2022 would have been citing a discontinued, frozen number — a mistake the exam expects candidates to be able to spot, since NCDEX's live sectoral index today for the guar family is NCDEX GUAREX, not AGRIDEX.
Why NISM asks about it
Chapter 2 (Commodity Indices), section 2.3, gives the full 2021 constituent weight table and the discontinuation date. Expect a question testing whether AGRIDEX is currently a live, tradable index — it is not — and one on its discontinuation date of 1 February 2022.
Common exam traps
- AGRIDEX is discontinued, not merely "less liquid." Calculation and display stopped entirely from 1 February 2022.
- Do not confuse AGRIDEX with NCDEX GUAREX, which is a live, narrower sectoral index covering only guar seed and guar gum.
- The ten-commodity weight table in the workbook is a 2021 snapshot, not a currently maintained live weighting — it is preserved for its historical illustration of how a composite agri index is built.
Where this is taught
Free preparation for NISM Series XVIRelated terms
- CommodityUnder Indian commodity derivatives law, any tangible good other than actionable claims, money and securities — sold in large, uniform quantities and approved by the government and SEBI for futures trading.
- Composite indexA commodity index spanning several segments — energy, metals, bullion — whose constituents must each weigh 1 to 30 per cent, with at least 80 per cent of the weight in sufficiently liquid futures.
- Sectoral indexA commodity index built from the futures of a single segment — bullion, base metals, energy or the guar family — with fixed annual weights and no 30 per cent cap per constituent.
- BULLDEXMCX's sectoral index tracking sentiment in the precious metals segment, currently weighted roughly 60% gold and 40% silver, based on futures prices rather than spot.
- Excess return indexAn index measuring an investment's performance purely against a benchmark or risk-free rate, without counting any income the underlying generates — the flip side of a total return index, which counts both.
- GUAREXNCDEX's sectoral commodity index on the guar family, with only two constituents — guar seed at 59.35% and guar gum at 40.65% for the year 2022-23.
- METALDEXMCX's base metal sectoral index — for 2025, copper 40%, aluminium 30%, zinc 26% and lead 4% — which the workbook also reads as a rough inflation gauge for the metals family.
- Monsoon proxyUsing an agricultural commodity index future as a stand-in for a bet on the monsoon — buy it for a deficit monsoon, short it for a good one — which the workbook offers as an approximation only.
- Production valueOne of the two scores that fix a commodity's index weight — the average value of deliverable supply over the past five financial years, where deliverable supply is production plus import.