Hong Kong stock exchange to extend circuit breakers to futures products to temper wild gyrations in equities and derivatives

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), the market operator, will further expand its circuit-breaker mechanism to temper wild swings in the price of futures contracts in Asia's third-largest capital market. The move will add to similar controls put in place since August 2016, first on extreme gyrations in equities and a year later on derivative products. They followed a series of events that provoked regulatory probes into market misconduct such as price manipulation and pump-and-dump scandals. The new measure, starting from April 12, on the futures market will introduce multiple triggers of five-minute periods for investors to cool off…