Hong Kong shares fell sharply on Monday with heavy selling of banks and property counters pushing the benchmark to its biggest single-day drop since a rout on August 9. The benchmark Hang Seng fell 4.2 percent although turnover remained light ahead of a public holiday, as Hong Kong markets are shut on Tuesday for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chinese markets on the mainland were shut on Monday.
"With the Hang Seng threatening to hit another low for the year and markets still volatile, people want to lighten up ahead of the holiday," said Norman Chan, chief investment officer at Banyan Asset Management in Hong Kong. "You've got the Hang Seng trading at about 9 times earnings which is, of course, low but who wants to catch a falling knife?" said Chan.
Monday's drop took the index to 19030.5, below a trendline connecting intraday lows since August 9. This could pave the way for a retest of the more than two-year low at 18,868.1 hit that day. More than three-quarters of the index's tumble was attributable to a 5.5 percent decline in shares of HSBC Holdings, which last week lost its top Hong Kong executive to Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager.
The bank also faces uncertainty over the impact from new reforms in Britain aimed at ring-fencing bank retail operations from investment banking and trading arms. Standard Chartered Plc fell 4.4 percent. Losses accelerated as European markets open lower with banking shares leading losses.
The biggest losses on Monday came from Chinese property counters, led by China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd, which tumbled 7.5 percent, its sharpest one-day drop since December 2008. The company said late on Friday that sales in August fell 11.2 percent year-on-year. The weak numbers also hit shares of other developers such as China Resources Land Ltd, which ended down 5.3 percent.
Cyclical counters such as shippers and raw material producers most geared to global economic growth continued to slide. China Merchants Holdings (International) Co Ltd was down 7.1 percent on Monday while Aluminium Corp of China Ltd was off 6.7 percent. Worries over the impact of a worsening crisis in Europe and a stalling US economy on profits for cyclicals has sent investors scrambling towards the relative safety of defensive sectors such as telecoms and utilities. Not a single Hang Seng component stock was in positive territory, although utility issues such as CLP Holdings Ltd and Hong Kong & China Gas Co Ltd continued their outperformance, down 0.5 percent and 1.5 percent respectively.
Comments
Comments are closed.