White Collar | HKEx’s relaunch of gold contracts unlikely to succeed
Plenty of investment options for those wanting to trade the precious metal
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) plans to launch gold futures again but there is reason to doubt whether the third such attempt will be any more successful than two ill-fated predecessors.
The local bourse has launched gold contracts twice in the past two decades but they attracted little trading.
HKEx chief executive Charles Li Xiaojia said last month the exchange planned to launch gold futures contracts denominated in yuan but did not provide further details.
It scrapped trade in US dollar gold futures in March last year after they failed to attract much interest from market participants following their launch in 2008.
The Hong Kong Futures Exchange, now a unit of HKEx, launched a gold contract in the 1980s but trading was scrapped in the 1990s due to a lack of interest.
HKEx has traditionally been strong in stock trading. It was the world’s largest initial public offering market last year and the eighth-largest exchange in terms of total market capitalisation of companies listed on the exchange.