HKEx suspends gold futures contract as London gold 'fix' gets makeover
LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) - 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 (NYSE: ICE - news) is due to take over from the gold "fix" on March 20.
HKFE, owned by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx (HKSE: 0388-OL.HK - news) ), 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. (Reporting By Clara Denina; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)