From the evening of December 26 to the morning of the 27th, the second batch of night-trading futures products of Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE), including No. 1 Soybeans, No. 2 Soybeans, Soybean Meal and Soybean Oil as well as Coking Coal and Iron Ore, were smoothly put into trading on line, bringing the number of DCE’s night-trading products to 8. During the trading process on the night, with the significant interaction of soybean products with the international markets and the attention of the international markets drawn to the coal and ore products, the products of the two sectors lighted up the night-trading market.
In the night-trading session from 21:00 on the 26th to 2:30 on the 27th, the six new night-trading products listed on DCE in the second batch totaled a trading volume of 484,315 contracts (unilateral, the same below), accounting for 73% of the DCE’s total trading volume of 659,238 contracts on the night, which surged by 996% compared with the total night-trading volume of the previous day. Among the second night-trading products, with significant interaction with the international markets, the soybean-related products became the briskest sector as the trading volume of No. 1 Soybeans exceeded that of day trading on the 26th only after 3 hours in the night trading with the trading volume of the soybean-related products accounting for 66% of the total. The night-trading debut of the iron ore drew the attention of the international markets, with a trading volume of 39,694 contracts on the night. The market participants believed that the night trading on Dalian futures market has shown the three features of remarkably narrowed gaps of market prices, improved night-trading product sectors and highlighted internationalization of the products.
The night trading session on DCE saw the six newly listed products and the two previously listed products on the night trading operate smoothly with the prices fluctuating rationally and the gaps significantly narrowed at the opening. The newly launched products of No. 1 Soybeans, Soybean Meal, Soybean Oil, Iron Ore and Coking Coal on the night saw the opening prices of the dominant May contracts record gaps of 0.09%, 0.14%, 0.50%, 0.21% and 0.14% respectively, much narrower than before, with the role of the night trading shown in avoiding the risk of the gaps on the following day. Since the introduction of the night trading for the pilot products of RBD Palm Olein and Coke, the price fluctuations have also been substantially narrowed, with the average gap of the dominant contracts of RBD Palm Olein dropping from 0.71% before the introduction of the night trading to 0.31% after the listing and the figure for the Coke falling from 0.52% to 0.33%. With the price gaps narrowed, the newly launched night-trading products showed high correlation with the relevant products on foreign markets.