About the Webb-site CCASS Analysis System

CCASS stands for Central Clearing and Automated Settlement System.
CCASS is operated by Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company Limited (HKSCC), wholly-owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx). In order to settle a trade on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Ltd (SEHK, also wholly-owned by HKEx), securities must be deposited with CCASS. HKSCC then registers them in the name of its 100% subsidiary, HKSCC Nominees Limited (HKSCCN), on the issuer's share register. Hong Kong is still an immobilized but not scripless system.
Consequently, listed share registers tend to have a huge holding in the name of HKSCCN, and not much else, besides controlling shareholders and a few employee holders. For this reason, since 28-Apr-08, HKEx has been disclosing the list of CCASS Participant holdings on its web site, up to 1 year back.
We capture, preserve and analyze the data. Analysis allows you to see the date the holding last changed, the holdings of each participant across the market, and the net daily movements of holdings in each stock and of holdings by each participant, as well as the time series of holdings by one participant in one stock.
In the case of brokers, this will give you a clearer idea of what stocks they deal in most, and if you have a margin account, what the pool of collateral might include. This collateral pool is often pledged to lenders, and if its value falls suddenly then it can trigger a brokerage collapse. By looking at recent trends you can have some idea, up to 2 days ago, whether a broker was selling or buying a line of stock. For institutional brokers, it is harder to tell, as most of their clients hold stock through the major custodians. If custodian holdings are increasing, then institutions are probably net buyers.
Our records for shares and subscription warrants begin on 26-Jun-07, so any holding you see dated 26-Jun-2007 may not have changed on that date. For REITs, our records begin on 1-Mar-2011, because HKEx did not make them available before that date - the records from that date onwards were released in 2012 on our request. We only record changed data, but even then, we now (27-Nov-2015) have over 100 million records in over 2000 issues.
Types of CCASS Participants are brokers, custodians, pledgees, clearing houses and Investor Participants (IPs). The CCASS IDs of brokers are prefixed "B", custodians are prefixed "C", pledgee participants are prefixed "P" and clearing houses are prefixed "A". Broker participants may also be pledgees, and custodians may hold pledged stock.
With the exception of IPs, CCASS Participants may or may not have beneficial interests in the shares they hold in CCASS, so don't use the data as a guide to beneficial ownership.
Holdings of IPs are not disclosed individually unless they have consented. This allows them the same level of privacy that they would enjoy if they held the shares through a broker.
IP CCASS IDs are not published, so if they change their names, we have to regard them as new participants.
The domicile of corporate participants of all kinds is not disclosed, so the names may not uniquely identify them either.
Issued shares are approximate, as issuers are not required to disclose the figure whenever it changes. Consequently percentage stakes may be wrong if the figure is outdated. We use the disclosed issued shares as at the latest date on or prior to the date you are looking at.
When a stock split or consolidation occurs, HKEx assigns a temporary stock code to the issue, for trading in the "old" share certificates, typically for 2 weeks, after which the original stock code reopens for the "new" certificates. The old certificates then continue on the temporary counter for another 3 weeks, known as "parallel trading" although in practice there is very little activity. Formerly we did not track the holdings on temporary stock codes, so during these periods percentage stakes may be wrong and our record of holdings may be frozen. Temporary counters and parallel trading have been an anachronism since CCASS was introduced in 1992, and was due to be abolished on 3-Nov-08, but abolition has been delayed indefinitely. In late 2015, we gave up waiting for HKEx to do the right thing and got around to coding to collect the temporary counter holdings to provide a seamless record while the original counter is closed, but as HKEx deletes information from its web site after 1 year, our records for temporary counters begin on 27-Nov-2014. During parallel trading, we collect the normal counter, not the temporary counter.
Changes in holdings of an issue over a period show the actual holdings at the end of the period. The change in shares held is calculated by subtracting the holding at the start of the period, adjusted for stock splits or bonus issues during the period. The change in the percentage stake is the difference between the stake at the end of the period and at the start of the period, using the respective outstanding shares at those 2 dates. The same applies to changes in a portfolio.
When an issue begins trading "ex-bonus", there is a period of several days before the bonus shares are actually issued. During this period, the value of the ex-bonus shares will drop, all other things being equal. On an adjusted basis, the number of shares held will also appear to drop as holdings prior to the ex-date are adjusted upwards by the bonus factor.
Sort the holdings in descending order or in date order to see former holders with zero balances. To keep the list readable, we don't show zero holdings when sorted by name or by ascending holding.
Trades are normally settled on T+2, so the holdings you are looking at, if they are due to market trades, relate to trades 2 clearing days earlier. On certain half-days before a public holiday or during a typhoon, there is no clearing, in which case trades from this day and the previous day will be settled together. For example, trades on 21-Dec-2007 and 24-Dec-2007 were both settled on 28-Dec-2007, the second trading day after Christmas.
If a Participant ceases to exist, we do not remove its records, so the list of Participants includes those who now have zero holdings in CCASS.
Some movements are simply due to deposits or withdrawals of securities not related to a market trade.
We estimate the number of "securities not in CCASS" by deducting those which are from the latest number of issued shares on or prior to that date, as captured from the HKEx web site. Therefore if the number of issued securities is wrong, then the number of securities not in CCASS is wrong.
We disclaim any liability for any reliance on the data and for any errors or omissions.

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