Call it the year of shattered expectations; in a painful lesson for both investors and analysts, the Hong Kong stock market rounded out 2002 down 2,075.92 points or 18.21 per cent at 9,321.29, its third consecutive year of losses and the longest losing streak on record for locally listed shares.
This came despite broad optimism at the start of the year that a resurgent global economy in the second half, led by the United States, would see the local benchmark end the year significantly higher than the 11,397.21 at which it began.
As so often happens, market performance did not follow script and those who had been betting on a recovery were instead rewarded with some of the heaviest selling since the crash of 1929.
'It's an interesting year to have lived through,' said ING Financial Markets equity strategist Markus Rosgen.
For those stocks geared to the local economy - which include a broad swathe of the Hang Seng Index - last year marked more of the same. Ongoing deflation and intense competition hammered earnings growth while surging unemployment gave consumers even less reason to spend. It was little surprise to see the blue chips endure another year of misery.
'The reason is obvious for the big caps as we aren't expecting any earnings growth. There's no growth momentum and with the continuous decline in prices there's no way for them to improve their margins,' Dao Heng Securities deputy research head Eric Yuen said.