中国投资者热爱新型金融产品。他们的热情有时近乎狂热，这解释了为何在上海市场，新股上市时价格会一飞冲天，也解释了为何本地股票基金在推出当日就能募集到数十亿元人民币的资金。
但即便是老练的市场专业人士，也对投资者拥抱股指期货的热情感到惊讶——这是中国自上世纪90年代中期推出的首个金融期货，于两周前推出。
“成交量超出了所有人的预期，” Newedge上海首席代表迪安•欧文(Dean Owen)表示。Newedge是一家法国期货经纪商，与中国中信集团(Citic)有一家合资公司。
事实上，上周二，也就是交易启动后的第三天，中国金融期货交易所(CFFE)的股指期货成交量已经超过了上海证交所(SSE)的股票成交量。
股指期货合同允许买卖双方在某一指定日期，根据事先商定的价格买进或卖出一个股指。中国首个股指期货产品基于沪深300 (CSI 300)指数。该指数涵盖沪深两市最具代表性的蓝筹股。首批上市合约为2010年5月、6月、9月和12月合约。
每手合约的价值是用股指点数乘以300元人民币（约合44美元）。例如5月合约目前的交易点数在3200左右，这意味着其价值大概为96万元人民币。而周二，有近14万手此类合约易手，总价值达1340亿元人民币。
鉴于中国政府已颁布法规，禁止经验不足的投资者涉足指数期货市场，这种交易量的飙升就显得更为惊人。投资者必须要通过一场考试，并满足一系列苛刻条件，包括教育背景、信贷纪录、月薪和流动性资产等。
尽管存在这些限制性措施，而且经过了三年多的准备，但股指期货市场的开局似乎仍不太符合监管部门的期望。这个市场成为了富有投机者的乐园，而不是机构投资者为股票资产组合对冲风险的场所。
“目前股指期货市场被散户投资者主宰，而这正是监管部门和证交所希望避免出现的情况，”欧文表示。“很明显，散户投资者并没有把股指期货当做针对自身股票资产组合的对冲工具。”他指出，来自浙江的富豪占据了股指期货市场的大半壁江山，而他们中许多都是老练的大宗商品期货交易者。
超过90%的交易都在当天交割完成，表明了该市场的短期和投机性质，这种追求利润的连珠炮交易被称为“超短期交易”(scalping)。
例如，本周二，投资者交易了14万手5月合约。然而，到闭市时，只有不到7400手合约仍处于未交割状态。而在西方期货市场，所谓的“未平仓头寸”(open interest)通常要高于日成交量。
“我们还处于‘新事物'的兴奋期，” 摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)中国策略师娄刚(Jerry Lou)表示。“市场将在中长期内逐渐成熟，但就目前而言，它更多地将是一种以更高杠杆率进行投机的方式，而不是对冲工具。”
或许正因如此，中国证监会(CSRC)上周发布了交易指引，允许本土证券公司和证券投资基金参与股指期货交易，但只限套期保值，不得以投机为目的。
证监会还表示，将很快出台针对合格境外机构投资者(QDII)的相关法规。此举将使外资基金拥有一种对冲中国动荡股市下行风险的工具。今年以来中国股市累计下跌11%。
行业专家表示，麻烦在于，股指期货目前走势独立，对于作为基础的股市走向没有多少前瞻作用。
一名投资者将股指期货市场描述为中国“最大的赌场”。他表示，该市场非但没有成为稳定性的来源，反而只会加剧更广泛金融市场的动荡。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032418
Chinese investors love new financial products. Their passion, at times bordering on mania, explains why Shanghai stocks rocket in price on their trading debuts and why local equity funds can raise billions of renminbi on the day they launch.
But even seasoned market professionals have been surprised by the enthusiasm with which investors have embraced stock index futures – China's first financial futures since the mid-1990s – following their launch two weeks ago.
“The volumes have exceeded everyone's expectations,” says Dean Owen, Shanghai-based chief representative for Newedge, the French futures brokerage, which has a joint venture with Citic Group in China.
Indeed, on Tuesday last week, the third day of trading, the value of stock index futures traded on the China Financial Futures Exchange exceeded the value of stocks traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The first index futures, agreements to buy or sell an index at a given value on an agreed date, are based on the CSI 300 index, which tracks the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets. The initial contracts are for May, June, September and December.
Each contract is worth Rmb300 ($44) times the value of the index. That means the May contract, which has been trading around the 3,200 level, costs about Rmb960,000. Nearly 140,000 of these contracts were exchanged on Tuesday, worth a combined Rmb134bn.
The surge in trading volumes is all the more remarkable because Beijing has imposed rules to keep inexperienced investors out of the market. Investors must pass an examination and meet tough criteria for educational background, credit history, monthly salary and liquid assets.
Despite these controls and more than three years of preparations, the market has not started in quite the way regulators had hoped. Rather than being a place where institutional investors hedge stock portfolios, the market is a playground for wealthy speculators.
“The market is dominated by retail investors at the moment, which is something regulators and the exchange want to avoid,” says Mr Owen. “It is clear retail investors are not using the futures as a hedging tool against their stock portfolios.” Wealthy people from Zhejiang province, many of them seasoned commodity futures traders, comprise more than half of the stock index futures market, he says.
The short-term, speculative nature of the market is illustrated by the fact that more than 90 per cent of trades are opened and closed on the same day, a kind of rapid-fire trading for profit known as scalping.
On Tuesday this week, for example, investors traded 140,000 May-dated contracts. However, fewer than 7,400 contracts were left open at the end of the day. In western futures markets, so-called “open interest” is typically higher than daily trading volumes.
“We're still in the ‘new thing' excitement period,” says Jerry Lou, China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley. “The market will mature in the mid to long term, but for now it will be more of a greater-leverage way to play the market than a hedging tool.”
This may be why the China Securities Regulatory Commission released guidelines on Friday that allowed domestic securities companies and mutual funds to trade the stock index futures, but only for hedging rather than speculative purposes.
The CSRC also said it would soon unveil regulations for qualified foreign institutional investors to trade index futures. Such a move would give foreign funds a tool for hedging against downturns in China's volatile stock market, which has fallen 11 per cent this year.
The trouble, industry experts say, is that the stock index futures currently have a life of their own and reveal little about the direction of the underlying stock market.
One investor describes the futures market as the “biggest casino” in China. Rather than being a source of stability, he says, it will only increase volatility in the wider market.
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