Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) has amended the contract specifications and trading procedures for International Stock Futures and Options (ISFO) to reduce their transaction costs and strengthen their competitiveness. The changes will become effective on 7 January 2002.
Korean and Taiwan Stock Futures and Options
The contract multipliers of Korean Stock Futures and Options on Korean Stock Futures contracts will be increased from 10 shares to 100 shares, while the contract multipliers of Taiwan Stock Futures and Options on Taiwan Stock Futures contracts will be increased from 1,000 shares to 10,000 shares. Also, the position limits in Korean and Taiwan contracts will be reduced from 50,000 to 5,000 contracts, while the large open positions in Korean and Taiwan Contracts will be reduced from 10,000 to 1,000 contracts. In addition, Registered Traders in Korean and Taiwan contracts will be required to bid and offer for a minimum of three contracts. The current minimum is five contracts.
Parallel trading will be adopted on 7 January 2002. Contracts with existing HKATS (Hong Kong Futures Automated Trading System) codes will be traded with the new contract multipliers, while contracts with current contract multipliers will be traded under new, temporary HKATS codes. Options contract months with open interest will be available for trading under the temporary codes until open interest is zero or expiration whichever comes first, while options contract months without open interest will be suspended. Futures contract months with open interest will be available for trading under the temporary codes until open interest of both futures and corresponding options in the same contract month is zero or expiration, whichever comes first. Futures contract months without open interest will be suspended only if there is also no open interest in the options contract of the same month.
After 7 January 2002, no new contract months or option series with current multipliers will be listed. On 7 January 2002, contract months for futures and options with the new contract multipliers, under existing codes, will be January 2002, February 2002, March 2002, June 2002 and September 2002. Please see the attached table for lists of the existing codes and temporary codes together with their corresponding contract multipliers.
Revised margin requirements will be announced before 7 January 2002.
US and Japanese Stock Futures and Options
The exchange fee for US and Japanese Stock Futures contracts, and the exchange fee, exercise fee and cabinet bid fee for Options on US and Japanese Stock Futures contracts will each be reduced from US$0.45 to US$0.25 per contract. Also, the Registered Traders exchange fees for US and Japanese Stock Futures contracts and Options on US and Japanese Stock Futures contracts will be reduced from US$0.07 to US$0.04 per contract.
List of HKATS Codes with Corresponding Contract Multipliers of Korean Contracts and Taiwan Contracts to be Used on or after 7 January 2002