Promotion of Institutional Improvements in the Derivatives Market
The Korea Exchange announced on the 12th that it will promote institutional improvements in the derivatives market, such as additional listings of underlying stocks for stock futures and options, and improvements in the method of publishing derivatives prices.
On the same day, the Exchange announced the revision of the detailed rules for the derivatives market regulations and plans to implement them from the 22nd of next month after collecting opinions from market participants.
The Exchange plans to list additional underlying stocks for stock futures and options twice a year based on criteria such as the components of the KOSPI 200 and the KOSDAQ Global Index. The number of underlying stocks for stock futures will increase from the current 191 to 223, and for stock options from 47 to 52. Furthermore, after the second additional listing scheduled for August, most of the components of the representative stock indices are expected to be listed as underlying stocks for stock futures.
The method of publishing derivatives prices will also be improved. In addition to the expected transaction price published during the single-price session, the expected transaction quantity and the price, quantity, and number of orders for three levels of expected best bids will be additionally published. Also, the current total bid quantity and number of orders will be replaced by the sum of quantities and number of orders for five levels of best bids.
Moreover, the Exchange will expand the trading hours for futures spread trading to allow investors to easily roll over positions to the next expiration. Since its introduction in 2001, futures spread trading had been limited to connection trading, but single-price trading will now be allowed. Transactions will follow an individual competitive trading method based on a single price, and the deemed contract price setting will remain the same, based on the previous contract price of the near-month futures immediately before the start of single-price futures spread trading.
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