Trading Hours
The trading day consists of:
- A pre-opening auction session from 9:00 am to 9:30 am. The opening price of a security is reported shortly after 9:20 am.
- A morning continuous trading session from 09:30 am to 12:00 pm
- An extended morning session from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm, also referred to as the lunch break. Continuous trading proceeds in specifically-designated securities (currently two ETFs, 4362 and 4363). Trading in other securities is not possible. However, previously-placed orders in any securities can be cancelled from 1:00 pm onwards.
- An afternoon continuous trading session from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
The closing price is reported as the median of five price snapshots taken from 3:59 to 4:00 pm every 15 seconds. In May 2008, the exchange also implemented a closing auction session to run from 4:00 pm to 4:10 pm, with a similar pricing mechanism as the opening auction; however, this resulted in significant fluctuations in the closing prices of stocks and suspicions of market manipulation. Initially, the exchange proposed limiting price fluctuations in the auction sessions to 2%; in the end, they removed the closing session entirely in March 2009.
Up until 2011, trading hours comprised a pre-opening auction from 9:30 AM to 9:50 AM, followed by continuous trading from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM and 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM. The two-hour lunch break between the morning and afternoon sessions was the longest among the world's 20 major stock exchanges. A 2003 proposal to shorten the lunch break failed due to opposition from brokers. Another plan to shorten the lunch break to one hour was floated by the exchange in 2010; the morning session would then start earlier, run from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm, and the afternoon session from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, leaving the closing time the same as before. Justifications included bringing hours into line with China. Reactions from both brokers and the restaurant industry were mixed.
On 7 March 2011, the exchange extended its hours in the first of two phases. The morning session now runs from 9:30 am to 12:00 noon, followed by a ninety minute lunch break, and an afternoon session from 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm. Index futures and options now begin trading at 9:15 am, thirty minutes earlier than before, and close at the same time as before, 4:15 pm. On 5 March 2012, the lunch break will be cut to sixty minutes, with the afternoon session running from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong Stock Exchange
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