Share prices in Hong Kong closed lower Thursday but off lows on the back of a modest rebound in many blue chips following morning losses which were driven by Standard & Poor's downgrade of Hong Kong's local currency ratings outlook.
The Hang Seng Index closed down 17.16 points or 0.18 percent at9,787.49, off a high of 9,803.30, and a low of 9,712.90, on trade of 5.225 billion HK dollars (670 million US dollars).
The Hang Seng October contract closed at 9,750 points.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index was down 14.12 points at 1,872.19, and the CAC Index was up 0.12 at 1,092.23. The GEM board Index was up 0.30 at 117.53.
In the property sector, Cheung Kong was up 0.25 at 53.50, Henderson Land rose 0.05 to 25.00, and Sun Hung Kai Properties was down 0.10 at 49.80, off a low of 49.40.
Within the telecom sector, China Mobile was up 0.05 at 21.15, China Unicom rose 0.10 to 5.55, and Hutchison Whampoa was up 0.50 at 49.70.
But the financial sector failed to rebound in the afternoon, as Standard & Poor's has revised the outlooks on its AA- local currency ratings for Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd and Hong Kong Mortgage Corp to negative from stable.
Within the financial sector, HSBC was down 0.50 at 87.00, Hang Seng Bank fell 1.0 to 84.75, and BOC Hong Kong was unchanged at 8.05.
Great Wall was up 0.05 at 0.89 and Founder rose 0.06 to 0.77 on rotational buying.
On the GEM board, Tom.com was unchanged at 2.025, Sunevision was down 0.01 at 1.11 and Hongkong.com was 0.004 lower at 0.155.
For China related stocks, China Resources was up 0.10 at 8.10, Shanghai Industrial was down 0.05 at 12.40, and Huaneng Power was down 0.10 at 5.80.
(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2002)
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