New | Hong Kong, China stocks crawl to firm close in morning session
Hang Seng Index broke the losing streak and rebounded by 1 per cent
Hong Kong stocks finished with modest gains in the morning session on Thursday while Chinese shares eked out miniscule gains in what brokers say may be a short-lived rebound.
The Hang Seng Index added 221.63 points, or 0.99 per cent, to 22,719.63, while the H-share China Enterprise Index up 71.27 points, or 0.70 per cent as of noon. Agriculture and mining led the gains, with both up 1.12 per cent.
The A share market largely held steady after some swings into negative territory.
The Shanghai Composite Index added 9.14 points, or 0.25 per cent, to 3,657.07, while the Shenzhen Composite gained 8.23 points, or 0.35 per cent, to 2,351.85.
Large-cap tracker CSI 300 rose 3.98 points or 0.11 per cent, to 3,785.58, while the tech-heavy ChiNext dropped 13.60 points, or 0.47 per cent, at 2,883.96.
“This is only a short-term rebound after three days of losses and investors are just adding back some positions. There is not enough momentum to lend force to a sustained rally,” said Louis Tse Ming-kwong, director at VC Brokerage.
Property and coal mining outperformed the benchmarks, up 1.87 per cent and 1.52 per cent, on decent home sales and the anticipation of a cold winter that spurs demand for heating related industries.
In addition, state media such as the Securities Times and China Securities Journal shed light on the likely agenda of the annual Central Economic Work Conference, which sets the tone of economic and financial reform for next year.
State-enterpirse reform, fiscal reform and further support measures on the property sector are likely to be discussed in the conference, which usually is held in the second or third week of December.
The People’s Bank of China set the yuan midpoint at 6.3896 against the US dollar on Thursday, 19 basis points weaker than Wednesday’s level. The offshore yuan is trading around 6.42 to the dollar.
The PBOC has given the go-ahead to a first batch of seven foreign central banks and sovereign investments funds to access and trade in China’s interbank foreign exchange market, an important step to boost the yuan’s popularity as a reserve currency.
The entrants are the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Reserve Bank of Australia, Hungarian National Bank, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Development Association, Trust Funds of World Bank Group and Government of Singapore Investment Corp.
