Market Open:Hong Kong stocks seen flat ahead of China GDP
Investors may remain cautious on Tuesday ahead of crucial gross domestic product (GDP) data to gauge the extent of slowdown in the world's second largest economy.
Investors may remain cautious on Tuesday ahead of crucial gross domestic product (GDP) data to gauge the extent of slowdown in the world's second largest economy.
Forecasts for China’s third-quarter GDP have been increasingly gloomy. Yet the China Securities Journal said on Tuesday that the nation is unlikely to give more leeway in monetary loosening, given that inflation could rebound in the fourth quarter.
Data released on Monday showed that China's inflation eased slightly to 1.9 per cent last month, from 2.0 per cent in August.The GDP data will be released on Thursday.
"We expect the economy to show moderate improvement in coming quarters, with the full-year 2012 real GDP growth forecast at 7.6 per cent, and the 2013 growth forecast at 8.0 per cent," Haibin Zhu, economist with JP Morgan, said in a note to its client when look into the fourth quarter.
Overnight, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closed up 11.54 points, or 0.81 per cent, to close at 1,440.13. The Nasdaq Composite added 20.07 points, or 0.66 per cent, to 3,064.18. In London, the FTSE-100 Index dropped 12.29 points, or 0.21 per cent, to end at 5,805.61.
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The coal producer said coal sales volume grew 7.5 per cent to 13.36 million tonnes in September from a year earlier. January-September coal sales volume went up 4.7 per cent year-on-year.
Sinopec (0386.HK) and ENN Energy (2688.HK) said late Monday they were dropping their drawn out US$2.15 billion offer bid for the private-owned piped gas developer. Announced last December, the bid met stiff opposition, with China Gas shareholders complaining that the bid did not reflect the firm's true value.
An investor in China's largest instant noodle maker sold 38.27 million shares on Monday after the stock hit HK$24.4 last Friday, and raised as much as HK$918.4 million through the deal.
The Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of state-owned Sinopec has acquired half the terminal business of Mercuria, one of the world’s leading independent oil traders. The company acquired 50 per cent of Vesta Terminals for 128.6 million euros.
The power producer said total power generation within China fell 5.4 per cent to 223.662 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in the first three quarters, compared to the year-earlier period.
