The stock exchange has hit back at Singapore's planned launch of a Hong Kong futures product, asking information provider Reuters to withhold real-time stock price information.
Senior exchange executives yesterday met with a representative of Reuters, which supplies stock price information to Morgan Stanley Capital International to calculate the MSCI Hong Kong Index.
The Singapore International Monetary Exchange (Simex) will launch its MSCI Hong Kong index futures (HiMSCI) contract, based on the MSCI index, on November 23.
Sources said it would be hard for the Simex product to compete with Hang Seng Index futures if it was denied real-time information.
The exchange also warned Reuters it would not provide price information if real-time information supplied to MSCI damaged the stability of the local stock market.
Reuters was not available for comment last night. An exchange source said it hoped the vendor would co-operate.
'We [the stock exchange] cannot accept price information being used by an offshore centre to launch a derivative product which may have a negative impact on Hong Kong,' an exchange source said.
