HONG KONG: China stocks edged up, while Hong Kong shares closed slightly lower on Wednesday as some investors booked profits after a rally following the country’s latest real estate stimulus measures announced last week.

The market has been closely monitoring the effectiveness of the latest real estate stimulus measures unveiled on Friday.

Property stocks gave back some gains seen in early trade, with the CSI 300 real estate index rising 1% at the close.

“While the new property policies are positive for sentiment, sustainability of equity rally will likely be determined by the pace of transmission to earnings improvement as seen in previous programs,” BNP Paribas analysts said.

Photovoltaic companies jumped 5.6% to lead the gains after its industry association held a meeting to call for industry consolidation.

Meanwhile, the first batch of China’s 1 trillion yuan ($138.14 billion) ultra-long special treasury bonds, which debuted on Wednesday, surged more than 20% on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges in the early session, triggering trading suspensions.

At the close, the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.02% at 3,158.54.

The blue-chip CSI300 index was up 0.23%, with its financial sector sub-index higher by 0.31%, the consumer staples sector down 0.67%, the real estate index up 1.13% and the healthcare sub-index down 0.4%.

The smaller Shenzhen index ended up 0.24% and the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was higher by 0.883%.

At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was down 25.02 points or 0.13% at 19,195.60. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index fell 0.05% to 6,817.68.

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 0.7%, while the IT sector dipped 0.15%, the financial sector ended 0.27% higher and the property sector dipped 0.58%.

Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.31%, while Japan’s Nikkei index closed down 0.85%.