HKEx Reaches Derivatives Milestone

by Phillip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

19 December 2008

The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) derivatives market reached a major milestone on December 10, with year-to-date turnover exceeding 100 million futures and options contracts for the first time, the company has announced.

This year's turnover set a record on October 29, when it surpassed the previous all-time high turnover of 87,985,686 contracts for all of last year.

Major contributors to this year's record high turnover include stock options (about 52% of the total), Hang Seng Index (HSI) futures (about 21%) and H-shares Index (HHI) futures (about 14%).

In the first 11 months of this year, derivatives market turnover was up nearly 20% from the same period last year, with the growth mainly driven by increases in trading of HHI futures (up 33%), HSI futures (up 27%) and stock options (up 20%).

The top ten most actively traded stock options on the Hong Kong exchange in the 11 months to the end of November 2008 were: HSBC Holdings Plc (7,478,940); China Construction Bank Corporation (4,313,297); China Mobile Ltd (3,969,279); China Life Insurance Company Ltd (3,562,023); Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (3,432,908); Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (3,033,504); Petrochina Company Limited (2,805,564); Bank of China Ltd (2,625,388); CNOOC Ltd (2,233,055); and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (1,639,426).

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