The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is partnering with China index provider FTSE Xinhua Index (FXI) to list CME E-mini futures on the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index, scheduled to begin trading on 20 May.
The FXI China 25 index consists of 25 of the largest Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and has a total market capitalisation of about USD241 billion. The company behind the index, FTSE Xinhua Index, was established in 2000 in a joint venture between global index provider FTSE Group (FTSE) and Xinhua Finance, China’s premier financial information and media services company. Many investors around the world are also already familiar with the index through the iShares FTSE Xinhua China 25 Index Fund, which trades on average more than two million shares a day.
CME, the leader in exchange listed equity index futures products, will be the first US exchange to list futures on the Chinese equity market. The contracts will be traded exclusively on CME Globex and available for trading virtually 24 hours a day.
“Our customers want electronic access to the Asian markets on a platform that is fast and reliable,” says Craig Donohue, the Chief Executive Officer of the CME. “Last year nearly 400 million E-mini equity index contracts traded at CME, which lists some of the most actively traded equity index futures products in the world. We look forward to adding the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index to our suite of benchmark equity indexes.”
“We are very pleased to be partnering with the CME, a recogniSed institution in the Asian financial community,” ADDS FXI Managing Director Norman Yen. “All of the stocks in our FXI China 25 Index are liquidity screened and individual index constituents are capped at 10 percent to avoid over- concentration of any single stock. The result is a liquid stock index that will now appeal to even more investors when it can be traded as a futures contract.”