DCE launching night trading for coke futures on July 4

The Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) will launch night trading for coke futures from 9pm local time on Friday July 4.

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The Chinese exchange will make the service available to other products in the future depending on the development of the contract as well as that of palm olein futures, which also commences night trading on the same day.

“In recent years, it has been a trend for foreign exchanges to improve competitiveness by extending trading hours, covering more time zones, and servicing the global markets,” DCE said last Friday on the rationale for the move.

“Compared with the international markets, Chinese domestic futures exchanges usually have shorter trading hours and therefore the prices may not be able to fully react to market information. It also doesn’t help to expand the exchanges’ influence on the global stage,” the statement noted.

Night trading hours will be from 9pm to 2.30am the next day. This will extend the total trading hours to nine-and-a-half hours from the current four hours per day.

The exchange currently trades from 9am to 11.30am and from 1.30pm to 3pm.

The coke futures was listed on the DCE in April 2011. The most-traded September contract had an open interest of 258,662 lots as at June 30.