The Hong Kong stock market tracked gains on Wall Street and Shanghai, with banking giant HSBC and mainland financial companies leading Wednesday's gains.

The Hang Seng Index rose 769.09 points, or 3.24 percent, to 24, 483.84 after trading between 24,111.60 and 24,610.41 during the session.

Turnover reached 99.35 billion HK dollars (12.77 billion U.S. dollars), up from 68.68 billion HK dollars (8.82 billion U.S. dollars) Tuesday.

Traders said the local market is likely to stabilize and regain upward momentum on hopes of good corporate earnings next month, after Standard Chartered Bank posted better-than-expected results late Tuesday.

Standard Chartered Bank's statement that its 2007 pretax profit rose to 4.04 billion U.S. dollars from 3.18 billion U.S. dollars in 2006 helped banking stocks. The result was ahead of the bank's guidance in December that it would meet market expectations of a 3.96 billion U.S. dollars pretax profit.

HSBC led the rise in Hang Seng Index. The global lender rose 3.3 percent to 123.60 HK dollars and accounted for 123.37 points of the gain in the index.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.9 percent higher overnight at 12,684.92 after International Business Machines Corp. raised its 2008 earnings forecast.

The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks both A and B shares, rose 2.3 percent to 4,334.05 Wednesday on bargain hunting in financial companies.

The finance sub-index surged 1,441.44 points, or 4.35 percent, to 34,541.58.

The properties sub-index rose 827.30 points, or 2.67 percent, at 31,853.57.

The commerce and industry sub-index went up 390.32 points or 2.74 percent to 14,612.93.

The utilities sub-index dropped 115.17 points or 0.26 percent at 43,480.77.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2008)