Qing Ming Festival Holiday

Qingming / Qing Ming Festival  (清明节) is a popular festival celebrated in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Although there are a lot of Chinese lived in Singapore and Malaysia but is not an official holiday there.

The Qingming Festival is held on the first day of the fifth month in the 'Chinese or Lunar' calendar.

Qingming / Qing Ming Festival  (清明节) is literally translated as 'Clear Bright Festival' [ 清(pronounced as Qing) means clear,明(pronounced as Ming) means bright,节(pronounced as Jié] means Festival.]

It's also known as Tomb Sweeping Day because Chinese people visit the burial grounds, tombs or graves of their ancestors to pay their respect.

Asia countries celebrating Qing Ming Festival  (清明节) next week are shown below.

Stock Exchange	Qing Ming Festival  (清明节) Holiday
China	April 2 - 4, 2012  (Mon. to Wed.)
Hong Kong	April 4, 2012 (Wed.)
Taiwan	April 4, 2012 (Wed.)

Vietnam Stock Exchange will extend trading hours from March 5

The original plan of trading hour extension to afternoon session for HoChiMinh Stock Exchange (HOSE) will be launched  on March 5, 2012(first Monday of the month).

HoChiMinh Stock Exchange will extend the trading hours in its securities market as follows:

Trading Session	Current	Effective March 5, 2012
Morning Session	08:30am - 11:30am	09:00am - 11:30am
Mid-day break	closed	11:30am - 01:00pm
Afternoon Session	closed	01:00pm - 02:15pm

The total trading time of two hours and a half in the morning for opening order-matching, continuous order-matching and put-through transactions will remains unchanged. 

The reason to extend the trading hours so as to be in line with the regional standard practices as are in China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, New Zealand, etc. With this in view, it is expected to make continuous order-matching in afternoon sessions longer in attempt to strengthen market liquidity.

Also, the plan suggests no newly-placed orders, amendment and cancellation of matched orders as well as put-through advertising and settlement during the mid-day trading break. 

Additional regulations will also be imposed namely all-day trading price band, determination of reference price, order cancellation and amendment.
 
Also according to Vu Bang, Chairman of the State Securities Commission, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, the nation's main bourse, and the Hanoi Stock Exchange will likely to be merged in early 2013 if the plans to merge are approved by the government in the third quarter.

Change of Hong Kong Exchanges trading hours on March 5, 2012

With effect from March 5, 2012 (first Monday of the month). There will be a change of mid-day break in the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) which will now last between 12pm and 1pm (new) instead, and the afternoon trading session will be from 1:00 pm until 4:00 pm (new) instead of 1:30pm to 4pm (old). (see table below)

HKEx will extend the trading hours in its securities market as follows:

	Current	Effective March 5, 2012
Pre-opening Session	09:00am - 09:30am	Same as Current
Morning Session	09:30am - 12:00am	Same as Current
Mid-day break	12:00pm - 13:30pm	12:00pm - 1:00pm
Afternoon Session	1:30pm - 4:00pm	1:00pm - 4:00pm

Trading in HKEx’s derivatives markets and the auction sessions of the securities and derivatives markets will also start earlier from March 7, 2012.  

More on  www.hkex.com.hk.

BSE launches Greenex, India's first energy efficient index

Today, Asia's oldest exchange, Bombay Stock Exchange launched India's first carbon efficient index to measure the performance of companies in terms of carbon emissions, aiming to provide a benchmark for socially aware investors.  

This index will enable investors take more timely and informed investment decisions about companies in the energy intensive sectors. 

The BSE-GREENEX index will have 20 companies selected from the BSE-100 index, and it will gives equal weight-age to both energy efficiency and profitability.  It should help institutional and retail investors to evaluate a particular stock on the basis of the amount of money these firms save by being energy efficient.

This 20-share BSE-GREENEX includes some of India's leading companies such as Tata Motors , Tata Steel , ICICI Bank , Larsen & Toubro , Housing Development Finance Company , Reliance Infrastructure , Dr Reddy's Laboratories and DLF .

This is the second theme based index launched by BSE after the Shariah index.

The index can be used to develop green financial products including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and structured products, the BSE said.