40 years ago today, the city’s unified stock exchange opened for business in Exchange Square in Central
3-MIN READ3-MINSCMPPublished: 11:30am, 2 Apr 2026This article was first published on April 3, 1986.
Considering the historic nature of yesterday’s share market trading, a strong rally might have seemed appropriate.
Instead, the first session in the new unified stock exchange saw prices finish sharply down from Thursday’s close.
But most brokers still described themselves as well satisfied with the performance, despite the Hang Seng index closing the morning-only trading session 22.67 points down at 1,603.27.
Analysts generally thought it could have been much worse, considering the bearish news that came rolling in a week ago after the market finished its last pre-Easter session.
