China Everbright fires president

Cites embarrassing trading errors.

China Everbright Securities has fired its president, Xu Haoming, following a number of upsetting trading errors that forced regulators to ban the firm from proprietary trading until Nov. 18.
Xu will be replaced on an interim basis by Yuan Changqing.

State-backed Everbright also said its shares that were halted from trading yesterday would resume on Friday. Shares were down almost 3% before trading was suspended.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission identified Everbright as the source of last week's sudden 6% spike in the benchmark Shanghai Composite.

Everbrght’s trading system mistakenly placed RMB23.4 billion of buy orders, of which RMB7.27 billion were executed. It also sold RMB1.85 billion in ETFs and made thousands of futures short sales.

CSRC also prohibited Everbright from creating new stock index futures positions. Everbright, however, said it wouldn’t immediately sell off all its accidental purchases.

On Monday, Everbright accidentally sold RMB10 million in bonds at a steep discount. Everbright shares did not trade to start the week, but fell 10% Tuesday as investors punished the company.

HKB NEWS