An Insightful and Intriguing Speech about the Chinese Futures Industry

On October, 5, 2010, CFAA successfully held its distinguished speakers series featuring Ms. Yuan Xiaowen, Chief Executive Officer of Hutai Great Wall Futures Co, at the Union League Club of Chicago. As China just launched its decade-long awaited index futures exchange a few months ago, Ms. Yuan’s speech on the Chinese futures industry was very timely and drew a large audience especially those who are working or interested in the derivatives industry.

During her speech, Ms. Yuan gave a detailed and insightful recount of the history of the China’s futures industry, from its infancy in the 1980s to the long struggle in the 1990s, and finally the rapid expansion in recent years. She also discussed the main characteristics of China’s futures market, such as the heavy government supervision and intervention and highly speculative orientation of the market participants. She believes that China’s futures industry has an ample room for growth and improvement including enhancing its function as an effective risk management tool in order to achieve more effective and efficient economic development.

The speech was followed by a very active Q&A session. The audience raised many questions including: the potential role of program trading in China’s futures market; the types of financial products which are likely to appear in China’s futures market; ways to participate in China’s futures market from overseas; and career opportunities in China’s financial industry, especially the derivatives industry. Ms. Yuan addressed these questions in a very candid and concise manner. To those attendees who were not able to raise questions due to time constraints, Ms. Yuan offered further help offline.

CFAA and the audience were impressed by Ms. Yuan’s effort in bridging the gap between overseas Chinese financial professionals and the ever growing financial industry in China.