the gap was due to a large stop order in the HSI that drove the whole market higher - today is very thin and it looks like holiday season is already upon us. In addition a number of H-Share IPO's are coming out which are vastly oversubscribed which are causing excessive buying in some of the listed h-shares. IB does not trade for it's own account but Timber Hill does. Timber Hill trades and makes markets in equity related derivative products in HK and are trading the H-share futures. Note: Timber Hill's traders/black box does not see nor know about any client orders. All orders go through a seperate API and are routed directly to the exchange. Just in case that isn't clear... I'll state that all of our trading decisions are based independently of IB. fees: we've got to pay the bills at some point. Our fee (including exchange fees) is less than one tick and commissions shouldn't be a factor if you're going to make money trading this product. We're offering the free commission to hi-lite the product and I think one month does the trick.
HHI will be a great product, that is until the Shanghai Derivatives Exchange is launched ... then it will be toast. I'm hoping it will add more pressure for Taiwan to relax restrictions on trading the local market ... likely only one more drop in the bucket.
I guess "equity related derivative" would includes the HSI, I know the market makers on the HSI is making a killing just by looking at my slippage on my stop orders which range from around 6 points to 40 points. Now I know who's on other side of my slippage. As for comission, I think most people won't be trading it even if it's zero comisssions due to the liquidity at this point, all I am saying is that the promotion might get a better reception if IB waits until the volume builds up a bit.
I don't think IB will be offering taiwan anytime soon.. I trade Taiwan everyday and the exchange and its regulations are the worst(and weidest) I have seen. there are stupid regulations like a maximum of 300 contracts per account and max 100 contracts per order. Taiwan is also the only two countries in the world that charge a 0.025% transcation tax on the contract value and it amounts to a lot if you are day-trading. The exchange datafeed is realy slow(updates every 5sec) and and execution computers is down many times this year. the only reason I trade it is because of the diversification from other asian market, it's not very correlated with other markets..
HHI.HK. - looks like I have IB symbol right from the bulletin. Do I need to sign a disclosure or something? Can't get it allowed for my account which does have HSI?
Speaking of Taiwan ... seems this election could turn into a real brawl ... anyone remember the lock downlimit days following the last presidential election? At least this time I won't be long on election night :eek: