SHANGHAI: Mainland China stocks ended largely flat on Monday, while Hong Kong tracked gains in most regional peers following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s dovish shift during his comments on Friday.

Powell endorsed an imminent start to interest rate cuts, saying further cooling in the job market would be unwelcome and expressing confidence that inflation is within reach of the US central bank’s 2% target.

Meanwhile, China’s central bank rolled over maturing medium-term loans and kept the interest rate unchanged, underlining market expectations for further easing as the economy struggles to gain traction.

At the close, the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.04% at 2,855.52 points.

The blue-chip CSI 300 index slipped 0.09%, with the financial sub-index up 0.03% and real estate up 1.57%, while consumer staples and healthcare fell 0.64% and 0.91% respectively.

The smaller Shenzhen index ended up 0.42% and the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was weaker by 0.103%.

Trading volume jumped in big-cap ETFs such as Huatai-PB CSI 300 ETF, E Fund CSI 300 Index ETF, ChinaAMC CSI 300 ETF and Harvest CSI 300 ETF.

The Hang Seng index closed up 186.63 points or 1.06% at 17,798.73. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 0.95% to 6,278.63.

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 1.1%, while the IT sector rose 1.15%, the financial sector ended 0.78% higher and the property sector rose 3.06%.

Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.78%, while Japan’s Nikkei index closed down 0.66%.