Hong Kong share prices closed 0.79 percent lower on Wednesday, tracking losses on Wall Street and regional bourses, dealers said. The benchmark Hang Seng Index ended down 141.20 points at 17,721.07, after trading between 17,493.62 and 17,819.31 during the session. Turnover was 57.06 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.32 billion US).
The index has fallen for six of the past seven sessions, and rose just 0.1 percent last Friday. Traders said they expect the index to trade between 17,000 and 18,000 in the near term, adding that the recent consolidation has been mild. "The economic outlook in China and Hong Kong looks better when compared with other regions, which means the local bourse is not expected to see strong selling pressure for now," Ben Kwong, sales director at KGI Asia, told Dow Jones Newswires.
Blue chips were mixed. Index heavyweights HSBC fell 0.9 percent to 62.95 dollars and China Mobile lost 1 percent at 73.85 dollars. Crude price weakness continued to send China's oil majors lower. PetroChina was down 2.3 percent at 7.98 dollars and CNOOC fell 1.4 percent to 8.90 dollars. Most Hong Kong-listed Chinese property companies fell on concerns China's government will take action over home sales and mortgage loan applications after a sharp rise in home sales for the first half of this year. China Overseas Land fell 2.9 percent to 16.76 dollars and Soho China fell 5.1 percent to 4.65 dollars.
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