Lawmakers yesterday slammed the stock exchange's plan to extend trading hours from Monday, but both the government and the stock exchange reiterated the decision to implement a shorter lunch break that small brokers have been strenuously opposing.
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing has been extending trading hours to compete with overseas peers, which operate six to eight hours a day. Stock markets in the United States, Britain and Australia have no lunch breaks while Japan's has one hour.
Last March, Hong Kong decided to open 30 minutes earlier and slash the two-hour lunch break to 90 minutes. Prior to that, it was open only for four hours - the shortest among all major markets. The second phase of the programme to extend trading hours will start from Monday as the lunch break will be cut to one hour, bringing the trading time to 51/2 hours.
Unionist legislator Wong Kwok-hing said the extension of trading hours would only benefit institutional investors and large firms that had enough headcount to arrange shift duty.
Wong drew attention to a protest march on Tuesday by brokers opposed to the plan, which followed several other demonstrations in recent months. He warned that the protests would intensify if the exchange went ahead with its plan. 'With a one-hour lunch break and the long queues at the fast-food outlets in Central, many brokers won't even have enough time to finish their lunch,' he said.
Chim Pui-chung, legislator for the financial services sector, pointed out that the previous extension had failed to boost turnover.