The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) today reported a successful first day of trading on a new version of its third-generation automatic order matching and execution system, AMS/3.
The new version, AMS/3.5, has halved the average end-to-end system response time to 0.15 seconds, and doubled order processing capacity to 3,000 orders per second.
The system is also capable of supporting 21.6 million orders and 7.5 million trades in a normal four-hour trading day. HKEx’s current opening hours are 10.00 to 16.00, with a two-hour break from 12.30 to 14.30 for lunch. In its last two weeks of operation, AMS/3 processed an average of 6.5 million orders and 900,000 trades per day.
“The AMS/3 technical revamp demonstrates our commitment to providing efficient market infrastructure that meets the needs of our market participants and further strengthens the competitiveness of our markets,” said Charles Li, chief executive of HKEx, whose first day at the helm of the exchange was 16 January.
As part of the implementation process, a two-week stabilisation period begins today, which enables HKEx to switch back to the old system in the event of any problems with the new system.