Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) has announced the introduction of a liquidity provider (LP) programme for its After-Hours Futures Trading (AHFT) session between the session’s launch on 8 April 2013 and 31 December 2013.

Under the programme, HKEx will appoint up to two LPs each for Hang Seng Index (HSI) futures and H-shares Index (HHI) futures to provide price quotes between the open of the AHFT session at 5 pm and its close at 11 pm.

LPs will be required to provide continuous two-way quotes in the spot month of each product with a bid / offer spread not greater than 20 index points and a quote size not less than 5 contracts for not less than 80 per cent of the trading time in the AHFT sessions each month.

LPs that meet their obligations will be entitled to an Exchange Fee rebate.

The LP programme is open for applications from now until 25 March 2013.  LPs for the AHFT session will be announced in due course.

“Our aim is to provide investors with executable reference prices during the AHFT session,” said Calvin Tai, Co-head of HKEx’s Equities and FIC (Fixed Income and Currency) Business.  “We have had positive experience with LPs in other trading sessions and believe it will be good to have an LP programme for our AHFT session.” 

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