People who are in key positions in risk management, operations and trading have all been asked to stay in place for now.
Chinese traders spent the night in sleeping bags on trading floors in Shanghai, reports said Monday, as their respective firms attempted to get ahead of a lockdown as the region undergoes its worst Covid-19 outbreak in months.
Sinolink Securities confirmed Monday that it had sent a memo to employees asking them to return to the office by midnight to make sure the trading activities weren’t interrupted by a staff switchover.
Two of the biggest local players, Bocom and Huatai Securities, also have adopted the measures to bring staff into the office ahead of a major lockdown of the area.
For now, those traders will be living at work and sleeping wherever they can be made comfortable.
Some compensation is being offered, reports said, but the advance push is part of a larger effort to both avoid a remote lockdown of banking talent and to stave off volatility in China’s increasingly whipsawing markets.
So Who is Stuck on The Trading Floors?
People who are in key positions in risk management, operations and trading have all been asked to stay in place for now, with Bloomberg reporting that one asset management company is offering workers $313 a night per weekday to stay in their offices.
Rosefinch Fund, China Universal Asset Management, Harvest Fund Management, Greenwoods Asset are all named as companies that have asked workers to camp out on-site.
Investors Eye Shaky Trading Ecosystem
Investors have ridden wave after wave of volatility in Chinese markets, first sparked by the outbreak of the pandemic two years ago and re-shaken each time another outbreak appears.
Since then, the Chinese government has attempted various measures at stabilizing the government-supported trading environment, but is wary of another major ripple to already-stressed global markets.
Shanghai began locking down the massive city with its 25 million residents on Monday, with the district where the Shanghai Stock Exchange is located, Pudong, one of the first to be closed.
