Hong Kong stocks fell 0.89 percent on Tuesday amid renewed concerns over the health of the US economy, but Sinopec bucked the trend to close higher on expectations of lower oil prices.
"Retail investors are unwilling to hold on to their positions ahead of the holiday, so they took profits after two straight days of gains," said Alex Tang, research director at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International (HK) Ltd. The Hong Kong market will close after the morning session on Wednesday for the Lunar New Year holidays. It reopens on Monday.
Active buying was seen in Asia's top oil refiner, Sinopec, which rose 2.13 percent to HK$9.59 on expectations that it would benefit from lower oil prices. "In the near term, we think the risk to oil prices is on the downside and see Sinopec as a likely outperformer," Citigroup said in a research report on Monday.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 223.38 points to 24,808.70, but was off its day low of 24,504.53. The China Enterprises index of H-shares, or Hong Kong-listed shares in mainland companies, slipped 0.57 percent to 14,040.68. Mainboard turnover was HK$85.03 billion ($10.90 billion), down from Monday's HK$117.6 billion.
Signs that US consumers are falling behind on debt payments hit exporters hard, with shares of Li & Fung, a global consumer goods exporter, down 5.21 percent at HK$29.10. Local property stocks also weighed on the market, with New World Development falling 5.34 percent to HK$22.15 to top the blue chip loser list. Cheung Kong slid 2.07 percent to HK$123.30.
"Although interest rates are low, people's job security will be a question if economic growth slows," said Alfred Chan, chief dealer at Cheer Pearl Investment Ltd But bottom fishing lifted Chinese property developer R&F Properties . It rose 4.12 percent to HK$25.30 after falling more than 40 percent in the three months to Monday.
Another bright spot was Beijing Airport, which also jumped 4.12 percent to HK$9.35. Shipping counters were weak amid global economic woes, with China Shipping Development losing 5.33 percent to HK$21.30 and sister firm, China Shipping Container Lines, down 4.27 percent at HK$3.14.
China's two leading fixed-line carriers, China Telecom and China Netcom fell 0.5 percent and 3.35 percent, respectively, after UBS on Monday downgraded the two stocks to sell from neutral on valuation.
Comments
Comments are closed.