China’s commodity exchanges suspend night trading

The decision was made out of the needs to fight against the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the three exchanges explained in their individual announcements on February 2, and the halt is indefinite, “until the further notice”, they added.

The three exchanges, all under the regulation of the China Stocks Regulatory Commission, earlier on January 27 announced to resume trading on February 3 instead of January 31 in response to Beijing’s extension of the Chinese New Year holiday to February 2 from the original January 30 due to the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV.

DCE, headquartered in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning province, has launched a series of contracts including steelmaking raw materials such as iron ore, SHFE, headquartered in Shanghai, East China, has mainly been for the trading of metals and finished steel products such as hot-rolled coil, rebar, and stainless steel, and ZCE in Zhengzhou, Central China’s Henan province, is mainly for agricultural commodities such as cotton and wheat.

As part of the battling against the virus, A large number of Chinese enterprises other than governing organizations and entities serving crucial functions such as power houses have delayed the office return date to February 9-10 on the requests of their local governments.

By the end of February 1, China had 14,380 confirmed 2019-nCoV cases, 304 deaths, 328 cures, and 19,544 suspected cases, as against 291 confirmed cases and 54 suspected cases by the end of January 20, the first date of the official update by China’s National Health Commission.

Written by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com