Stock trading hours may clash with press time

Securities and Futures Commis-sion (證期會, SFC) officials yesterday denied a report that claimed stock trading hours would be extended to 1:30pm starting next year, saying the current proposal seeks a closing time of between 2pm and 2:30pm.

The report, printed in The Economic Daily News (經濟日報), said that the SFC had decided to push back the start of trading from 9 am to 8:30am and extend its close time from 12pm to 1:30pm.

Market watchers speculated that the report was part of a deliberate move by the paper to pressure the SFC to decide on an reduced extension of trading hours, which currently stretches from 9am to 12pm.

The Economic Daily News is the sister paper of the United Evening News, whose early afternoon press time would make it impossible to report the stock market's daily results, severely impacting its readership.

Both publications are owned by the United Daily News Group (聯合報系).

According to SFC officials, the current proposals to extend trading hours include maintaining the opening time at 9am and extending trading until either 2pm or 2:30pm.

The decision hinges on whether or not an hour-long noon intermission between 12pm and 1 pm will be included in future sessions.

The Ministry of Finance and the Executive Yuan will make the final decision, and SFC has scheduled to submit its final proposal before the end this month.

Besides some retail investors, two local evening newspapers have been strongly against the proposals of extending trading hours.

"It is better not to extend trading hours," said Yang Ren-fong (楊仁峰), editor-in-chief of the United Evening News (聯合晚報). "If it has to be extended, it is acceptable that the trading hours are between 8am and 12am."

"If trading hours are extended to between 9am and 1pm, it would generate lower external cost for the society," said Chen Shou-gwo (陳守國) editor-in-chief China Times Express. "The evening newspapers play an important role in providing stock market information. More than half of evening newspapers' readers purchase the newspapers to get stock market information. SFC's current proposal is likely to affect the deadline of the evening newspapers. The evening newspapers would not be able to deliver their copies to the readers in time, especially in remote urban area. The metropolitan area could also be delayed for traffic reason," he said.

"Secondly, if the evening news-papers discard stock market information to stay on time, their customer base is likely to shrink immensely. It would also hurt the circulation of stock news. The purpose of extending trading hours by the SFC is to connect with international stock markets. However, unless the market is traded 24 hours [a day], it would not be able to reach the target. On the other hand, [the trading hours extension] would affect the living habits of the general public, since the retail investors have been the major participants in the market," Chen said.

"For the sake of the public interest, we hope these [evening] newspapers comply with the government's policy and stop intervening in the current proposal," said a senior MOF official who declined to be named. "Maybe a change in trading times will have a negative impact on their circulation, but the development of the local stock market should be a higher priority than a few news-papers' revenue."