Economic Daily: 4 Products Launched for Continuous Trading Program on The SHFE from Dec. 26

Updated on Dec 24,2014

By Liu Ming

The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) lately released the “Notice on the Launch of Continuous Trading Program for Steel Rebar, Hot-rolled Coils, Natural Rubber and Bitumen Futures”. The Continuous Trading Program, or the Night Trading Session, for these four products will be launched at night on December 26 (Friday), 2014. Meanwhile, the SFHE released the “Announcement on Distribution of Amendments to Steel Rebar and Natural Rubber Contract Specifications” to amend the trading hours of natural rubber and steel rebar contract specifications. As the time for the Continuous Trading Program of bitumen and hot-rolled coils has been arranged at the beginning of their listing, the current amendments have not involved these two products.

It is learnt that the opening time of these four futures products is 21:00, which conforms to that of other products that have been launched for the Continuous Trading Program by the SHFE; the closing time of bitumen, steel rebar, and hot-rolled coils is 01:00 of the next day, which is the same with that of nonferrous metals products, while that of natural rubber is 23:00.

Insiders pointed out that under the background of economic globalization and networked trading, the interaction between overseas real economy and the futures and spot markets have been continuously strengthened and the continuous trading has become an inevitable trend for the development of global futures market, which are of great significance to the development of relevant industries and the internationalization of the futures market.

Li Qiang, President of Xinhu Futures Research Institute, said that the launch of Continuous Trading Program for these four products will not only provide investors with a trading platform to avoid overnight position-holding risks, but also offer more flexible choices for the hedging of industry clients and reduce the risk exposure in the trading, thus making the futures market better serve the real economy.

Ji Xinhua, Chief Risk Officer of Sinosteel Futures Co., Ltd., believed that it will help to enrich the series of products engaged in the Continuous Trading Program, enhance the abundance of strategy combinations of the Continuous Trading Program, and help real enterprises better manage their inventories and production and increase their capacity of refined operation.

Yuan Shangkuan, Futures Business Manager of the Marketing Department of Hainan Rubber Group, believed that the launch of Continuous Trading Program for natural rubber can both better satisfy the asset allocation and investment demands of different investors and provide a risk hedging platform for the overseas operation and the “Going-out” strategy of enterprises. He also said that deciding the closing time of natural rubber in the Continuous Trading Program as 23:00 by the SHFE has also considered the features of this product and also reduced the influence on industry customer’s trading practice by the extension of trading time.

Lu Jie, Chief of the Resources Division of CNPC Fuel Oil Co., Ltd., believed that the listing of bitumen for Continuous Trading Program conforms to the practical demand of the real economy globalization, which will provide deeper and more extensive price-finding and risk management services for the internationalization of the real economy and also pave the way for the listing of crude oil futures in the future.