Hong Kong share prices will continue their wild swings, but there could be some opportunities for brave bargain-hunters, dealers said. For the week ending October 10, the benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 16 percent to finish at 14,796.87, its lowest closing figure since November 2005.
The market has fallen 47 percent since the start of the year. Last October it stood at more than 32,000.
Peter Lai, sales director at DBC Vickers, said the market would remain incredibly volatile over the next week. "There is no concerted direction. The market is news-driven and sentimental. How it performs depends on Dow Jones and the performance of other Asian markets," he said.
"I believe global stock markets, for the short term, are near their bottom. People are just waiting for some kind of good news. Some kind of confidence catalyst," he said. Worries about the global banking sector have fuelled turmoil in markets across the world and in Asia, and turnover in Hong Kong has remained low as investors head to safe havens such as gold and simply holding on to cash.
The city's de facto central bank dropped interest rates 1.5 percent to try and ease the worries about liquidity in the banking sector, which is one of the city's key industries. Lai said such uncertainty meant the market could swing between 14,000 and 18,000 in the short term.