SHANGHAI: China stocks ended slightly higher on Thursday after swinging between modest gains and losses in thin trading volumes ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.

Chinese investors traded cautiously on concerns of more COVID outbreaks and other uncertainties when markets are closed for the festival, while foreign money continued to pile in on optimism about the country’s outlook.

China’s blue-chip CSI 300 Index edged up 0.2 percent at close, while the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.1 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.4 percent and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index ended unchanged.

Asian stocks hovered below seven-month highs, as investors waited to see whether US data will confirm inflation is in retreat.

People in China worried about spreading COVID-19 to aged relatives as they planned returns to their home towns for the Lunar New Year holiday that the World Health Organization warns could inflame a raging outbreak.

The week-long holiday that officially starts on Jan. 21 comes after China dropped its zero-COVID strategy last month in a policy U-turn that unleashed a wave of infections across the country.

Chinese investors tend to be cautious ahead of the long holidays, and some had booked profits before the markets shut for the country’s biggest festival.

But foreign investors bought a net 9.5 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) of China stocks via the Stock Connect Scheme on Thursday, sending the total purchase amount to 50.5 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) so far this year.

There are also growing signs that the end of the country’s tough COVID-zero policy might mark the beginning of a long global march back into Chinese equities. On Thursday, real estate developers dropped 2.3 percent and tourism-related companies fell 0.8 percent, while new energy vehicles gained 1.9 percent.