Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) announced today that the first batch of derivative warrants of five-digit stock codes would begin trading on Monday, 7 April.

HKEx announced on 8 October last year that its securities market would introduce five-digit stock codes on 7 April 2008 subject to market readiness. 

The rollout date has been confirmed after the successful completion of extensive system tests and market rehearsals. In addition, all Exchange Participants, Clearing Participants and directly connected information vendors have declared to HKEx their operational readiness for five-digit stock codes.

Eric Yip, HKEx’s Head of Cash Market, said, “The implementation of five-digit stock codes is a key step forward to support growth in the number of listed securities on our market.  With the availability of the additional stock codes, we will also be able to better classify and categorise the various types of products within specific stock code ranges over time for easy reference.”

Derivative warrants to be listed on or after 7 April will be assigned five-digit stock codes and 16 such securities will begin trading next Monday (see the Attachment).  HKEx’s stock code allocation plan is posted at http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/market/sec_tradinfo/stockcode/stockcode.htm and market users are advised to check it from time to time to stay informed of any updates or modifications to the plan. 

To reduce system and operational changes for Exchange Participants and other market users, HKEx will only assign five-digit codes to newly listed derivative warrants at the current stage.  Apart from being preceded by a zero, existing stock codes and AMS/3* information page numbers will not be affected, in general, and will remain within the range of 1 to 9999.