Risk of securities trading
The prices of securities fluctuate, sometimes dramatically. The price of a security may move up or down, and may become valueless. It is as likely that losses will be incurred rather than profit made as a result of buying and selling securities.
Risk of trading Growth Enterprise Market stocks
Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) stocks involve a high investment risk. In particular, companies may list on GEM with neither a track record of profitability nor any obligation to forecast future profitability. GEM stocks may be very volatile and illiquid.
You should make the decision to invest only after due and careful consideration. The greater risk profile and other characteristics of GEM mean that it is a market more suited to professional and other sophisticated investors.
Current information on GEM stocks may only be found on the internet website operated by The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. GEM Companies are usually not required to issue paid announcements in gazetted newspapers.
You should seek independent professional advice if you are uncertain of or have not understood any aspect of this risk disclosure statement or the nature and risks involved in trading of GEM stocks.
Risks of client assets received or held outside Hong Kong
Client assets received or held by the licensed or registered person outside Hong Kong are subject to the applicable laws and regulations of the relevant overseas jurisdiction which may be different from the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap.571) and the rules made thereunder. Consequently, such client assets may not enjoy the same protection as that conferred on client assets received or held in Hong Kong.
Risk of providing an authority to repledge your securities collateral etc.
There is risk if you provide the licensed or registered person with an authority that allows it to apply your securities or securities collateral pursuant to a securities borrowing and lending agreement, repledge your securities collateral for financial accommodation or deposit your securities collateral as collateral for the discharge and satisfaction of its settlement obligations and liabilities.
If your securities or securities collateral are received or held by the licensed or registered person in Hong Kong, the above arrangement is allowed only if you consent in writing. Moreover, unless you are a professional investor, your authority must specify the period for which it is current and be limited to not more than 12 months. If you are a professional investor, these restrictions do not apply.
Additionally, your authority may be deemed to be renewed (i.e. without your written consent) if the licensed or registered person issues you a reminder at least 14 days prior to the expiry of the authority, and you do not object to such deemed renewal before the expiry date of your then existing authority.
You are not required by any law to sign these authorities. But an authority may be required by licensed or registered persons, for example, to facilitate margin lending to you or to allow your securities or securities collateral to be lent to or deposited as collateral with third parties. The licensed or registered person should explain to you the purposes for which one of these authorities is to be used.
If you sign one of these authorities and your securities or securities collateral are lent to or deposited with third parties, those third parties will have a lien or charge on your securities or securities collateral. Although the licensed or registered person is responsible to you for securities or securities collateral lent or deposited under your authority, a default by it could result in the loss of your securities or securities collateral.
A cash account not involving securities borrowing and lending is available from most licensed or registered persons. If you do not require margin facilities or do not wish your securities or securities collateral to be lent or pledged, do not sign the above authorities and ask to open this type of cash account.
Risk of providing an authority to hold mail or to direct mail to third parties
If you provide the licensed or registered person with an authority to hold mail or to direct mail to third parties, it is important for you to promptly collect in person all contract notes and statements of your account and review them in detail to ensure that any anomalies or mistakes can be detected in a timely fashion.
Risk of margin trading
The risk of loss in financing a transaction by deposit of collateral is significant. You may sustain losses in excess of your cash and any other assets deposited as collateral with the licensed or registered person. Market conditions may make it impossible to execute contingent orders, such as "stop-loss" or "stop-limit" orders. You may be called upon at short notice to make additional margin deposits or interest payments. If the required margin deposits or interest payments are not made within the prescribed time, your collateral may be liquidated without your consent. Moreover, you will remain liable for any resulting deficit in your account and interest charged on your account. You should therefore carefully consider whether such a financing arrangement is suitable in light of your own financial position and investment objectives.
Risk of trading Nasdaq-Amex securities at The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited
The securities under the Nasdaq-Amex Pilot Program (“PP”) are aimed at sophisticated investors. You should consult the licensed or registered person and become familiarised with the PP before trading in the PP securities. You should be aware that the PP securities are not regulated as a primary or secondary listing on the Main Board or the Growth Enterprise Market of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited.
Risk of electronic trading
Trading on an electronic trading system may differ from trading on other electronic trading systems. If you undertake transactions on an electronic trading system, you will be exposed to risks associated with the system including the failure of hardware and software. The result of any system failure may be that your order is either not executed according to your instructions or is not executed at all.
Risk associated with structured products
Issuer default risk : In the event that a structured product issuer becomes insolvent and defaults on their listed securities, investors will be considered as unsecured creditors and will have no preferential claims to any assets held by the issuer. Investors should therefore pay close attention to the financial strength and credit worthiness of structured product issuers.
Uncollateralised product risk: Uncollateralised structured products are not asset backed. In the event of issuer bankruptcy, investors can lose their entire investment. Investors should read the listing documents to determine if a product is uncollateralized
Gearing risk: Structured products such as derivative warrants and callable bull/bear contracts (CBBCs) are leveraged and can change in value rapidly according to the gearing ratio relative to the underlying assets. Investors should be aware that the value of a structured product may fall to zero resulting in a total loss of the initial investment.
Expiry considerations: Structured products have an expiry date after which the issue may become worthless. Investors should be aware of the expiry time horizon and choose a product with an appropriate lifespan for their trading strategy.
Extraordinary price movements: The price of a structured product may not match its theoretical price due to outside influences such as market supply and demand factors. As a result, actual traded prices can be higher or lower than the theoretical price.
Foreign exchange risk: Investors trading structured products with underlying assets not denominated in Hong Kong dollars are also exposed to exchange rate risk. Currency rate fluctuations can adversely affect the underlying asset value, also affecting the structured product price.
Liquidity risk: The Exchange requires all structured product issuers to appoint a liquidity provider for each individual issue. The role of liquidity providers is to provide two way quotes to facilitate trading of 40421524_1 3 their products. In the event that a liquidity provider defaults or ceases to fulfill its role, investors may not be able to buy or sell the product until a new liquidity provider has been assigned
Time decay risk: All things being equal, the value of a derivative warrant will decay over time as it approaches its expiry date. Derivative warrants should therefore not be viewed as long term investments.
Volatility risk: Prices of derivative warrants can increase or decrease in line with the implied volatility of underlying asset price. Investors should be aware of the underlying asset volatility.
Mandatory call risk: Investors trading CBBCs should be aware of their intraday “knockout” or mandatory call feature. A CBBC will cease trading when the underlying asset value equals the mandatory call price/level as stated in the listing documents. Investors will only be entitled to the residual value of the terminated CBBC as calculated by the product issuer in accordance with the listing documents. Investors should also note that the residual value can be zero.
Funding costs: The issue price of a CBBC includes funding costs. Funding costs are gradually reduced over time as the CBBC moves towards expiry. The longer the duration of the CBBC, the higher the total funding costs. In the event that a CBBC is called, investors will lose the funding costs for the entire lifespan of the CBBC. The formula for calculating the funding costs are stated in the listing documents.
Renminbi Trading Service and Related Risk
Currency risk a non-Mainland (including Hong Kong) investor who holds a local currency other than renminbi will be exposed to currency risk if he/she invests in a renminbi product. This is because renminbi is a restricted currency and subject to exchange controls, you may have to convert the local currency into renminbi when you invest in a renminbi product. When you redeem / sell your investment, you may also need to convert the renminbi received upon redemption / sale of your investment product into the local currency (even if redemptions / sale proceeds are paid in renminbi). During these processes, you will incur currency conversion costs and you will also be exposed to currency risk. In other words, even if the price of the renminbi product remains the same when you purchase it and when you redeem / sell it, you will still incur a loss when you convert the redemption / sale proceeds into local currency if renminbi has depreciated. Like any currency, the exchange rate of renminbi may rise or fall. Further, renminbi is subject to conversion restrictions and foreign exchange control mechanism
Exchange rate risk and Daily Exchange Limit: Renminbi is currently not freely convertible and is subject to exchange controls and restrictions, the exchange rate of renminbi may rise or fall. When investing in listed renminbi-denominated securities, you should ensure that you have sufficient RMB to settle your trades, there is a maximum daily exchange limit of Renminbi outside Mainland China. In case you do not have sufficient Renminbi funding to subscribe RMB products, we may assist you to convert other currencies to Renminbi depends on RMB funds in Hong Kong SAR. We may also applied additional charges on such services
Interest rate risks: Central government has gradually liberalized the regulation of interest rates in recent years. Further liberalization may increase interest rate volatility. For Renminbi products which are, or may invest in, Renminbi debt instruments, such instruments are susceptible to interest rate fluctuations, which may adversely affect the return and performance of the Renminbi products. Liquidity risk: Renminbi products are also subject to liquidity risk as Renminbi products are a new type of product and there may not be regular trading or an active secondary market. Therefore you may not be able to sell your investment in the product on a timely basis, or you may have to sell the product at a deep discount to its value.
Issuer / counterparty risk: Renminbi products are subject to the credit and insolvency risks of their issuers. You should consider carefully the creditworthiness of the issuers before investing. Furthermore, as a Renminbi product may invest in derivative instruments, counterparty risk may also arise as the default by the derivative issuers may adversely affect the performance of the Renminbi products and result in substantial losses
Investment / market risk: Like any investments, Renminbi products are subject to investment risk and may not be principal protected i.e. the assets that the products invest in or referenced to may fall as well as rise, resulting in gains or losses to the product. This means that you may suffer a loss even if Renminbi appreciates.
Possibility of not receiving Renminbi upon redemption: Even the product aims to deliver Renminbi, it may not be able to pay you in Renminbi if the product has to sell non-Renminbi-denominated investments to meet your redemption / sale request, and encounters conversion restriction when converting the proceeds in non-Renminbi currencies into Renminbi. On the other hand, even if the investments are denominated in Renminbi, there may not be sufficient Renminbi to satisfy the redemption / sale requests due to the repatriation or other controls on Renminbi. As a result, you may not receive Renminbi when you redeem / sell your investments
Underlying investments of a renminbi products may not be renminbi denominated: For renminbi products that do not have access to an investment quota to invest directly in mainland China, their available choice of renminbi denominated investments outside mainland China is limited. The return of the renminbi products may therefore be adversely affected. Also, a renminbi products may have to invest in non-renminbi assets. In this case, the products will be subject to the renminbi exchange rate fluctuations and bid/offer spreads in selling its non-renminbi assets to meet redemption requests and other capital requirements (e.g. settling operating expenses)
Projected returns which are not guaranteed: For some Renminbi investment products, their return may not be guaranteed or may only be partly guaranteed. You should read carefully the statement of illustrative return attached to such products and in particular, the assumptions on which the illustrations are based, including, for example, any future bonus or dividend declaration.
Long term commitment to investment products: For Renminbi products which involve a long period of investment, if you redeem your investment before the maturity date or during the lock-up period (if applicable), you may incur a significant loss of principal where the proceeds may be substantially lower than your invested amount. You may also suffer from early surrender / withdrawal fees and charges as well as the loss of returns (where applicable) as a result of redemption before the maturity date or during lock-up period.
Risk of Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)
ETF is a fund authorised by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) that is traded on an exchange. Its principal objective is to track, replicate or correspond to the performance of an underlying index.
Market risks: An ETF is exposed to the economic, political, currency, legal and other risks of a specific sector or market related to the index and the market that it is tracking.
Credit/Counterparty risk: Synthetic ETFs typically invest in over-the-counter derivatives issued by counterparties. Such a synthetic ETF may suffer losses potentially equal to the full value of the derivatives issued by the counterparty upon its default
Tracking error: These includes failure of the ETF's tracking strategy, the impact of fees and expenses, foreign exchange differences between the base currency or trading currency of an ETF and the currencies of the underlying investments, or corporate actions of the ETF's underlying securities.
Trading at a discount or premium to NAV: Since the trading price of an ETF is typically determined by the supply and demand of the market, the ETF may trade at a price higher or lower than its NAV. Also, here the reference index or market that an ETF tracks has restricted access, units in the ETF may not be created or redeemed freely and efficiently.
Liquidity risk: Listing or trading on the SEHK does not in and of itself guarantee that a liquid market exists for an ETF.
Tax and other risks: Like all investments, an ETF may be subject to tax imposed by the local authorities in the market related to the index that it tracks, emerging market risks and risks in relation to the change of policy of the reference market.
