Given the choice between good news and bad news, investors opted for the latter and took dismal consumer confidence data from the United States as an excuse to sell a little more of the Hong Kong market yesterday.
The Hang Seng Index ended 55.27 points or 0.54 per cent lighter at 10,130.25, its fourth consecutive fall. Turnover bucked up from recent miserable levels but still came in at a thin HK$5 billion.
'The good thing is that at least there is finally some kind of a tug of war between the bulls and the bears,' said OSK Asia research director Alex Wong, encouraged by the uptick in turnover. 'The sellers remain aggressive but the buyers are willing to step out and this is a relatively positive sign.'
The market was taking its cues largely from Wall Street where investors ignored surprisingly strong durable goods orders figures and concentrated on surprisingly weak consumer confidence numbers from the Conference Board.
'The consumer keeps spending and factory production is still growing and companies are making profits - [but] investor confidence hasn't yet come back,' said Tanrich Asset Management director Kennis Leung.
Shares were also hurt by a less than upbeat outlook for the third quarter from Intel chief executive Craig Barrett while on a tour through Southeast Asia.