Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) Limited released its monthly trading report this Monday. The firm, which owns t, disclosed trading figures for its securities and derivatives markets for April 2018.

The securities market saw a monthly turnover of approximately 2.06 trillion HKD ($262.29 billion). This was substantially less than March, in which the securities market saw 2.76 trillion HKD ($350 billion) in turnover.

This was in part explained by the fact that March had two more days of trading than April. That being said, the average daily turnover for securities in April was still 17.7 percent lower than it was in March.

The reduction in trading was not confined to a specific type of security. Instead, there was an even decrease in securities trading across equities, derivative warrants, unit trusts and callable bull/bear contracts.

Futures up, options down

In the derivatives market, there was an increase in futures trading volumes – although it was not as substantial as the decrease in the securities market. April saw an average trading volume of 521,405 futures contracts per day. This was a 6.4 percent increase on March which had the lower figure of 490,028 futures contracts per day.

Trading volumes in the options markets decreased slightly in April. Average daily volumes for options were 661,829 contracts per day. This was 6 percent less than the 704,210 contracts per day in March.

Aside from fluctuations in trading volumes, April also saw eight new companies added to the securities market. This was as in April of 2017, 11 firms were added to the market.