Hong Kong Stock Exchange
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) can be traced back to the Association of Stockbrokers in Hong Kong, which was founded in 1891. This company was later renamed to The Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1914. The Hong Kong Stockbrokers Association, founded in 1921, was merged with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1947, after World War II. A number of other mergers occurred throughout the 1960's up to the 1980's. In the year 2000, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was acquired by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing. Today, the HKEX is one of the largest stock exchanges in Asia.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange was modernised in 1986 when they started using computers in their system. "The Automatic Order Matching and Execution System" (AMS), was introduced in 1993. This was later updated by the AMS/3, which is a third generation system implemented in 2000. Trading hours in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange begin at 10am and end at 4pm. There is a two hour break from 12:30 to 2:30pm in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has had problems fulfilling both their commercial and regulatory rolls. For this reason, there have been efforts to answer the need for a regulatory authority to preside over the Hong Kong stock market.