Globally there have been few examples, if any, of traditional financial institutions getting full use of customer big data to provide a mass-market asset management product. There are of course specialized hedgefunds and wealth management products that track market sentiment, but few beyond that. In China however, Internet giant Baidu and now, more recently, E-commerce tycoon Alibaba group are both changing the fintech landscape by how they are leveraging big data to bring new products to market. 

Chinese investors continue to join the market rally at an unprecedented pace. Records were broken as 1.6 million accounts were opened from March 23rd and March 27th and only slightly less in the following week – 1.5 million...more than the population of a small city..., well a small city outside of China.

As China's bull market continues, new accounts are being opened and trading volume is growing. One unexpected outcome is that existing capital markets technology is being stress tested and it doesn't seem to be coping that well...

With the Taiwan - Singapore now on track for year end, we are seeing a tremendous uptick in cross-border trading efforts, but instead of M&A, exchanges are focusing on trading links. 

China’s capital markets are maturing. Futures and margin trading had already been launched, but this week we saw equity options for the first time in China. The new derivatives trading commenced with big fanfare, with main regulators as well as top government officials present at the opening ceremony, emphasizing the importance of the event.

2014 was a good year to be a bank in China, but apparently an even better one to be a brokerage. The latest data from the Securities Association of China shows that 2014 total income for the industry was 260.3 billion RMB (Chinese Yuan), up 63% from 2013.

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has plans to launch a FTSE China A50 Index Futures option product if / when it is approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). While the new product name can be confusing for those who don’t follow Asian stock and derivatives markets closely, it simply means that investors in the region will have a hedging tool for the rollercoaster stock markets of China. Up more than 40% since November last year, the stock market dipped several times in January. Since the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect launched, the attention on Chinese A-shares has been unprecedented and additional investor interest should drive demand for exposure and hedging tools.

A bit outside of our normal commentary, but an article sheds light on how low-latency technology is important in China, but for buying train tickets.

Alibaba is yet again launching another investment product, and this time it will give its Alipay customers the option to invest in gold.

Conventional wisdom and the written history of capital markets would have it that the value of a particular stock is based on the potential of future returns in the form of dividends and the underlying book value of the company. Not ones to stick with tradition, China’s mainland investors have often defied this basic tenant of reason and developed their own ideas about what the price of any particular stock should be.