After 18 Years China Resumes Treasury Futures as Bitcoin Mania Grips the Country

From the Economic Times:

China re-launched trade of its treasury bond futures on Friday, 18 years after banning it following a multi-billion-yuan trading scandal.

The three five-year treasury bond futures contracts started trading on the Shanghai-based China Financial Futures Exchange, with the base value for December 2013 at 94.168 yuan (USD15.19), March 2014 contract at 94.188 yuan and June 2014 contract at 94.218 yuan.

The December contract, the most actively traded, debuted at 94.22 yuan, up 0.06 per cent from the base price.

It ended the morning session at 94.314 yuan, up 0.16 per cent, state run Xinhua news agency reported.
China introduced treasury bond futures in 1992 on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The trading was halted in 1995 after Wanguo Securities, then the nation's largest brokerage, conducted illegal trading of a government bond futures contract which led to multi-billion-yuan losses and bankruptcy of the company....MORE

And from Bloomberg:

Photograph by Ngkaki/Getty Images

Hong Kong

Sun Minjie, a 28-year-old Internet worker who lives in Beijing, has invested more than $3,000 in 796 Xchange, a website where people buy and sell shares of companies that deal in Bitcoins, the digital currency. The stock of 796 Xchange, which also deals in Bitcoin futures, returned about 57 percent from Aug. 1, when it started trading on the company’s website, through Sept. 3. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained about 4.6 percent during the same period. “In China, the stock market, property, and bond market are all not so good, so people get really excited when they hear of a new investment that generates high returns,” says Peter Pak, head of trading at BOCI Securities in Hong Kong.

In May, China briefly overtook the U.S. in monthly creation of Bitcoins, rising from seventh place in August last year. China now ranks second, according to SourceForge, a technology website that tracks Bitcoin activity worldwide. Created four years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to buy and sell a growing range of goods and services online—from cupcakes to electronics to illegal narcotics....MORE

HT on both: Attain Capital Management