IF CERTAIN players in the Hongkong stock market were in the fortune-telling business, their uncanny ability to foresee major political and financial developments and purchase shares accordingly would be hailed as astonishing.
Indeed, not even the top fung shui consultants can equal the precision of some market players in anticipating Sino-British developments or market-moving statements from Chinese leaders.
When, last November for example, the New China New Agency (NCNA) announced that all contracts, leases and agreements that straddle 1997 between private firms and the Hongkong Government must be vetted by the Chinese Government, it sent Hongkong's marketsinto a tailspin.
Although Beijing's statement was released after the market had closed for the day, the Hang Seng Index had mysteriously begun a precipitous fall earlier that day, dropping 176 points.
Unfortunately for the reputation of Hongkong's stock exchange, there have been many such recent examples of unusual market clairvoyance.
Yet according to the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), these cases - as in the case of the sharp rally in the stock market in early July 1991, when an agreement on the new airport had been signed but not announced - are ''macro-economic'' issues that are outside of the investigatory scope of the Securities (Insider Dealing) Ordinance.