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SCMP Reporter

OVERZEALOUS trading took Hang Seng cash and futures indexes on a roller-coaster run yesterday.

 After growing speculation about the trading activities of investment banks, activity has been buoyant in the past two days.

  Yesterday strong sentiment pushed the February contract to a high of 8,365.

  At the high, at 3 pm, sentiment turned on its head.

  The February contract slumped, in a void of buyers, by 365 points in 30 minutes.

  It closed down 130 points at 8,050, a discount to the cash of 83 points, and the March contract was off 120 points at 8,070.

  Turnover was a healthy 25,327 contracts with 25,098 contracts in February and 229 in March.

  A dealer said: 'There really was no reason for any of the trading on Wednesday and yesterday - it was just a case of traders following each other's rumours.'   In index option trading, Jardine Fleming said: 'Options traders were bearish and took the opportunity of the morning rally to go short the market.'   Trading focused on selling February puts and buying February calls.

  Open interest in the futures contract for February was 36,748 contracts and 1,667 in March.

   In index options the open interest in calls and puts for February were 10,937 and 11,123 lots respectively.



Indexes in roller-coaster run