Brokers will have to get used to taking shorter lunch breaks and going to work earlier after the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday announced it would extend trading hours from March next year.
Securities dealers will take an hour-and-a-half lunch break from March 7 next year and around a year after will just have an hour to finish their lunch. They currently have a two-hour break from 12.30pm. They will also have to start work earlier because trading hours will begin at 9.30am instead of 10am.
Extending the trading hours will help the exchange stay competitive, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing chairman Ronald Arculli told reporters, adding that the decision to introduce longer trading hours had been well received following consultation with the financial industry.
Rather than cutting the lunch break to just one hour next year straight away, Arculli said it will be easier for everyone if it was reduced by half-hour next year and another half-hour the year after.
From March 7, 2011, trading will be from 9.30am to noon and then from 1.30pm until 4pm. And from 2012, trading begins at 9.30am until noon, starts again at 1pm and finishes at 4pm.
If turnover goes up significantly, the shareholders of the exchange including the government are likely to be impressed with Charles Li Xiaojia, who has taken up the baton from Paul Chow Man-yiu as chief executive since late last year and has been pushing for reform of trading hours.
Major markets such as the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq trade for 6? hours a day. The Irish and Frankfurt exchanges, which trade for 8? hours, have the longest opening hours. After the changes to opening hours in Hong Kong are completed in 2012, the bourse will trade for 5? hours from the current four hours.
