I am working on trading models for trading the Hang Seng Index. It is a cooperation project among multiple parties. I am quite excited by the idea that I am taking my financial technologies and trading experience to challenge the best minds in the Asian arena.
To my surprise, in the initial phase of this project, for which I expected a lot of difficulties in terms of data collection and information gathering, it is so much easier than working with the S&P indices.
For S&P 500 and the other related indices, one of the challenges is to figure out all the historical components of the indices and the exact time for which these components are part of the index calculations. S&P makes it so hard to figure this out even though it is something that should be made available to the public. It took investigative work to track down all the changes that I explained in one of the chapters of Market Breadth Primer.
However, working on Hang Seng Index, it is so easy to gather such information because Hang Seng Index has its own official website with everything you need to know about the indices are made available. I have to praise those working there that they are doing such a great job that S&P should be ashamed.
So why venture into trading the Hang Seng?
Well, I can see that the financial system is not going to be stable going into the future. Counter-party risk will be again in the spotlight soon. That means trading European markets is definitely not a good idea. Trading only instruments in North America is also not a good idea if bad things happen to the brokerages and clearing houses here. So, having presence in Asia now and eventually building this up to include more countries there will be a very good way to take my trading to the next level.
