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Enoch Yiu

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) will launch five new weekly stock options and a Hang Seng Biotech Index Futures contract this month, expanding hedging tools for investors as derivatives trading on the bourse hits record levels, a senior executive said.
The new weekly stock options – tracking CNOOC, China Mobile, AIA Group, Xiaomi and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) – will begin trading on November 10, while the biotech futures contract will debut on November 28.
HKEX’s average daily turnover of equity-derivative contracts rose 7 per cent year on year to 1.54 million in the first nine months of 2025, putting the exchange on track for a third straight record year, according to exchange data.
“The active trading and the introduction of these new products underscore the market’s vibrancy and regional influence of the derivatives market in Hong Kong,” said HKEX senior vice-president David Lutz in a recent media briefing.
Hong Kong became the first Asian market to launch short-term weekly stock options in November 2024, starting with 10 major stocks including Tencent Holdings, HSBC and Alibaba Group Holding, which owns the Post.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) was added in June.
Stock options are financial products based on stocks that allow investors to use different investment strategies for hedging. Weekly options, which expire within one to two weeks, provide more flexibility than monthly contracts, which typically expire after several months.
Lutz said shorter-term options had proven especially popular among international investors seeking to hedge risks during volatile markets.
He noted they had quickly become HKEX’s best-performing new derivatives product, generating 22 million contracts in their first 10 months, far surpassing the 3 million contracts traded by Hang Seng Tech Index futures in their first year after debuting in November 2020.
“We are confident in the growth prospects for all of our products, especially for single stock options,” he said. “The reason to be so excited about this market is that the primary market has been just so hot this year.”
The benchmark Hang Seng Index gained 35 per cent this year, making it one of the world’s best-performing major indices. The rally has been driven by strong buying of Chinese technology stocks after AI start-up DeepSeek drew global attention with the release of its low-cost, high-efficiency artificial intelligence models earlier this year.
“This year has proven to be an outstanding year for growth,” Lutz said. “Derivatives volumes for our Hang Seng Tech Index futures are up 30 per cent following that ‘DeepSeek moment’ we saw in February.
“There is a high degree of interest, both from institutional and retail investors, local and regional.”
Lutz said the surge in derivatives trading has also been supported by the relaxation of position limits introduced in July.
The rule change raised caps on key index futures: investors can now hold up to 15,000 Hang Seng Index futures contracts, up from 10,000 previously; the limit for Hang Seng China Enterprises Index futures doubled to 25,000; and the Hang Seng Tech Index futures limit rose from 21,000 to 30,000 contracts.
He said the previous limits, set in 1999, no longer reflected the scale and sophistication of Hong Kong’s derivatives market, noting that the rule changes were critical for Hong Kong to strengthen its role as a regional risk management hub.
The Hang Seng Biotech Index Futures, he said, would likely prove a strong draw for international investors to trade in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has risen to become the world’s second-largest IPO venue for biotech companies after New York, following the 2018 Chapter 18A reforms that allowed pre-revenue firms to list.


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Business

Exchange expands derivatives lineup to meet investor hedging demand after record turnover this year


Exchange expands derivatives lineup to meet investor hedging demand after record turnover this year.


China

Hong Kong

China Mobile

Xiaomi

HKEX to roll out new weekly options, biotech futures amid trading boom

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Exchange expands derivatives lineup to meet investor hedging demand after record turnover this year

Exchange expands derivatives lineup to meet investor hedging demand after record turnover this year