Chinese Online Class - Hong Kong shares close at record high led by China-related firms

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BIZCHINA / News

Hong Kong shares close at record high led by China-related firms

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-07-24 09:15

The benchmark Hang Seng Index closed at a second consecutive record high
on Monday, buoyed mainly by China-related firms following sharp gains in
the Chinese mainland's stock market.

.66 points, or 0.32 percent up at a new record high of 23,291.90, after
trading between 23,152.54 and 23,389.94 during the session. The turnover
totaled 84.64 billion HK dollars, up from 83.45 billion HK dollars last
Friday.

Analysts said the Hong Kong stock market will likely continue to rise in
the near term on ample liquidity and expectations of strong corporate
earnings growth.

"In today's session, profit-taking in the early morning quickly gave way
to rotational buying from investors," said Ben Kwong, chief operating
officer of KGI Asia Ltd.

"The Hong Kong market will maintain its upward trend in the near term as
liquidity remains very strong, with the Hang Seng Index likely facing
resistance at 23,500 level," he said.

China's central bank raised key lending and deposit rates 27 basis points
after the government said a day earlier the country's economy grew faster
than expected in the second quarter and inflation was on the rise.

"The latest measures led investors to believe the Chinese government may
not take any further steps in the short term to cool the country's
economy," said Kitty Chan, director of Celestial Asia Securities Ltd.

Three of the four major categories gained ground. The Properties, the
largest gainer, went up 266.04 points or 0.94 percent to 27,661.88. The
Finance rose 96.38 points, or 0.27 percent to 35,689.18. The Commerce and
Industry moved up 33.24 points or 0.25 percent to 13,234.94. The
Utilities moved down 45.65 points, or 0.12 percent to 36,726.80.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index broke a new high of 13,352.62 and
gained 168.17 points to 13,320.42.

On Chinese insurance stocks side, PICC P&C set the new high since listing
of 8.1 HK dollars and surged 13.58 percent to 8.03 HK dollars, benefiting
from a 26.56 percent rise of premium income in the first half of year.
China Life and Ping An rose 1.13 percent and 1.04 percent respectively.

On Chinese telecom stocks side, China Mobile was up 0.38 percent, China
Unicom down 0.84 percent, Netcom up 0.24 percent, and China Telecom flat.

On the six banks front, Bank of China, Bankcomm and CM Bank climbed 0.175
percent to 1.36 percent. ICBC lifted 2.24 percent after Merrill Lynch
raised its target price to 5.9 HK dollars. CCB got up steam in the
afternoon, broke the new high since listing of 6.08 HK dollars and
climbed 0.84 percent to 6.04 HK dollars. CITIC Bank added 1.67 percent.

HSBC was marginally down 0.34 percent. Hang Seng Bank went up 0.44
percent.

On resource stocks side, PetroChina and Sinopec Corp edged up 0.49
percent and 0.72 percent respectively. Coal stocks China Shenhua, China
Coal and Yanzhou Coal climbed 0.62 percent to 1.89 percent. Jiangxi
Copper added 2.39 percent, led by an increase in commodity price.

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)

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