Opinion | Bullish blue-chip directors stay active
Chairmen of property giants Henderson Land and Cheung Kong increase their holdings
The tide of directors buying shares in their own company rose for the seventh straight week, while selling was up for a second week, based on filings to the stock exchange for April 8 to 12.
Buyers outweighed sellers, with 51 companies reporting 212 purchases worth HK$832 million, against 20 firms with 77 disposals worth HK$203 million.
The number of companies and trades on the buying side were sharply up from the previous week's three-day totals of 25 companies and 98 purchases, while sales were sharply up from the previous week's nine companies that reported 26 disposals worth HK$42.3 million.
The huge buy value last week was due to heavy activity in blue chips, with purchases in Henderson Land Development, CLP, Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa worth a combined HK$669 million.
Buying of blue chips has been high for the past four weeks, with a weekly average of three companies reporting buys against a weekly average of 0.7 company buys from October 2012 to March 15.
The last time directors of blue chips were this bullish was in 2011 when a weekly average of four companies recorded buys from the last week of August to the second week of October.