The Hang Seng Index suffered its second-largest points fall yesterday as stock markets plunged across Asia.
The index dropped 8.55 per cent, or 1,380.39 points to 14,762.37, with technology-related stocks taking the hardest knocks.
'It was a terrible day,' Fulbright Securities general manager Francis Lun said.
Markets were reacting to Friday's sharp fall in US shares - when the Nasdaq Composite Index slid 9.66 per cent - following the release of stronger-than-expected inflation figures which raised the spectre of sharp increases in interest rates.
'[The] Hong Kong market forms part of the global market - it will be affected by things happening elsewhere,' Financial Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said.
By mid-afternoon, the Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average had clawed back some of their losses. The Nasdaq was up 77.59 points, or 2.34 per cent, to 3,398.88 while the Dow Jones had risen 172.19 points, or 1.67 per cent, to 10,477.96.
