Hong Kong stocks slid 0.96 percent on Thursday, ending three straight sessions of gains, as China Mobile slipped following a major shareholder's sale of US $147 million of the company's stock.
"The market is consolidating and we see pressure on the telecom stocks," said Dale Tsang, managing director for Polaris Capital (Asia) Ltd Tsang added that the blue chip index will continue to trade in the 18,500 to 19,000 range.
The benchmark Hang Seng index lost 183.37 points to close at 18,842.99. Turnover was HK$50.0 billion, down from Wednesday's HK$58.3 billion - the fourth highest ever. The China Enterprises index of H shares fell 1.02 to 8,709.86. Weighing on the overall market, HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank and the heaviest weighted stock in the Hang Seng index, fell 0.7 percent to HK$141.10, extending a previous fall after it issued a revenue warning. China Mobile lost 2.55 percent to HK$62.95, further pressured by investors diversifying into other telecom stocks.
"Investors are switching into other telecom plays because no one knows who is going to get the 3G licences," Tsang said. China Unicom rose 0.21 percent to close at HK$9.33. Also in favour, market debutant Kingboard Laminates Holdings, a spin-off from China's Kingboard Chemical Holdings Ltd gained 15.5 percent to HK$8.93 after the company's heavily oversubscribed IPO raised HK$5.8 billion (US $743 million).
But shares in Sinopec Corp, Asia's largest refiner, dropped 1.08 percent to HK$6.41. The company said on Thursday it would issue $1.5 billion of bonds convertible into the company's Hong Kong-listed H-shares.