Hey at least the people in Hong Kong no how to do business: (1) nice lunch break in the middle of the day (one hour or so of no trading compared to no lunch break in the USA) (2) nice way to celebrate the Chinese New Year (a few days off instead on just one day in the USA)
Futures Mag "Feb '02" mentions that several markets are "approved for trading by US traders" but none(not even the Dax as I erroneously listed) gets the same "favorable tax treatment" as US exchange based contracts. Not saying that one shouldn't trade overseas just that there are tax implications Net FWIW, Not a CPA, Broker, CTA, not affiliation with US exchanges or FCMs,IBs,
average volume on HK futures - w/o checking the stats i'd guess around 25K per day. Not a ton of contracts but it is a big contract and ther is liquidity. The mini trades about 10% of the volume of the larger HSI. This market is not for the faint hearted. Index options trade about 4-5K per day.
Volume is not much - maybe 25k contracts per day in the full sized contract, and around 4k (or less) on the mini. That's not huge, but it's not like you need to trade 100 contracts at a time to make some dough.
and my head is just about to explode, but I just can't find out how to report gains or losses from trading Hang Seng index futures to the IRS. I think I will try putting it on Schedule D as short term capital gains. That should be safe, shouldn't it?