For more than a century, Hong Kong’s legion of stock brokerages have traded through world wars, epic market busts and the former British colony’s handover back to China. But the coronavirus pandemic could pose the gravest threat yet.
The freewheeling Asian finance hub — home to legendary brokers such as “Cigar King” David Tung Wai, who traded into his eighties — is known for hanging on to traditions that have disappeared from other large financial centres.
While much trading in New York and London has moved online or been automated, Hong Kong’s brokers have fiercely resisted changes. Eight years ago they unsuccessfully protested a move to cut the bourse’s lunch break from two hours to one, complaining that they needed the additional time to meet clients over dim sum. The exchange’s trading floor closed in 2017 — more than 25 years after London’s.