Hong Kong shares edged up slightly yesterday in thin, jittery trade.
The Hang Seng Index struggled as high as 9,237.53 before settling in at 9,146.8 at the close, a 0.77 per cent rise.
Turnover, which has not exceeded $5 billion in two weeks, was $2.37 billion.
Brokers said they held out little hope for market enthusiasm until at least after the Lunar New Year. Large orders were hard to execute in such a thin market.
They said the market's difficulty in digesting a large order for First Pacific illustrated the problem.
Several orders placed in 100,000 share lots drove the counter's price up 10 cents to $4.925 in the last hour of trade. In the final minutes it promptly collapsed to $4.75, closing with a gaping spread of nearly 20 cents and up just five cents for the day.
