HONGKONG stocks substantially outperformed the Morgan Stanley World Index in January, up 3.9 per cent in US dollar terms against an index rise of 0.1 per cent.
''Hongkong began to recover the confidence of investors after recent skirmishes with mainland China,'' the US-based securities house noted in its Capital International Perspective (CIP).
It described January worldwide as ''sleepy''.
The index of emerging markets open to foreign investors rose 0.4 per cent, a move described as ''lacklustre''.
In US dollar terms, Danish stocks had the biggest gain, up 13.2 per cent, followed by Chile, 12.3 per cent, and Thailand, 12.1 per cent.
The CIP is published 16 times a year and reflects more than 80 per cent of the world's equity market capitalisation, in both US dollar and local currency terms.