US Coal Futures´ References to Chinese Coal Financial Innovation

Recently, with the increased volatility in global financial markets, the prices of energy are increasing significantly. Futures market and spot market are getting closer in the relationship. Therefore the financial crisis highlights the need of emergence of hedge risks for spot enterprises. The article explores the U.S. coal futures, and considering current situations of China coal market, makes a deep analysis to coking coal´ s production, demand and price changes. The Concentration Rate indices and the Herfindahl-Hirschman indices between China and U.S. are applied to compare background and conditions of listed coal futures. Then the article learns from the characteristic of coal industry in US before and after the launch of coal futures, the conclusion is drawn that the pace of financial innovation in Chinese coal futures market needs to speed up and coking coal may be selected as the first coal future product.