HKEx suspends gold futures contract as London gold 'fix' gets makeover

[LONDON] The Hong Kong Futures Exchange Ltd (HKFE) on Friday suspended its thinly-traded gold futures contract ahead of next week's replacement of the century-old London process known as the "fix", against which the gold futures were priced.

An electronic auction run by the Intercontinental Exchange is due to take over from the gold "fix" on March 20.

HKFE, owned by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), introduced the dollar-denominated 100-ounce contract in October 2008, settled on the morning version of the twice-daily gold benchmark.

"HKEx will review its precious metals strategy from a group perspective and redesigned gold futures contracts may be added to the HKEx Group's product list in the future," it said in a statement.

It noted that the contract, which failed to gain traction among investors, had no open interest at Friday's market close.

The move to an electronic auction for gold is part of a wider precious metals benchmarking reform that started in 2014, which stopped daily conference calls between representatives of a handful of banks, who agreed a price referenced by producers, consumers and investors to trade and value gold.

REUTERS