Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing will delay the launch of Dow Jones Industrial Average futures and options from next month to January. Albert Neubert, director of marketing and business development of Dow Jones Indices, said the decision had been made mainly because of the uncertainty in worldwide economies and investment markets following the September 11 attacks on the United States. However, HKEx chief operating officer Frederick Grede said the exchange wanted to concentrate on preparing for the launch on November 12 of the three-year Exchange Fund Notes futures. He said a lot of resources and effort went into promoting a new product. Therefore, HKEx did not want to launch two products at the same time. Mr Grede defended the thin trading of new exchange products. Although some products had very slim volumes on their debuts, they later increased, he said. As an example, he cited yesterday's trading, which showed 16 per cent of the total derivatives were products launched last year. In a separate move, the Securities and Futures Commission has approved investment bank Barclays' introduction of MSCI China Free iShares - an index fund based on 32 China stocks.
