China's Stock Markets: Hong Kong

Filed in archive Stocks on June 12, 2007

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) is the seventh largest stock market in the world (after the NYSE-Euronext, Tokyo SE, NASDAQ, London SE, Toronto SE, and the Deutsche Börse in Frankfurt). It is China's biggest stock exchange.

Informal trading activity dates back to 1861 in Hong Kong. The HKEX was established in 1891 as the Association of Stockbrokers in Hong Kong. In 1914 it was renamed "Hong Kong Stock Exchange." Competing stock exchanges have repeated arisen in Hong Kong but have always eventually merged into the HKEX.

The HKEX trades from 10:00am to 12:30pm and from 2:30pm to 4:00pm local time in Hong Kong.

The HKEX is far more open to foreign investors than either of China's other two stock markets. The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) are dominated by local investors - many of them individual investors from China's middle and working class. This is one reason (among many) that the HKEX is less volatile and less speculative than the exchange in Shanghai.