SELLING pressure from profit-takers and a switch to arbitrage activity among institutions robbed the Hong Kong stock market of buying momentum yesterday.
''The feeling was with buying pressure out of the market in the afternoon and Wednesday a Japanese public holiday, it was time to hold off and consolidate,'' said Suni Goonetillake of Peregrine Derivatives sales and research.
The Hang Seng index closed at 9,642.91, up 13.72 on a turnover of $9.95 billion. After stripping out the $944 million of Hopewell Holdings turnover, the total market activity figure was well down on the $10.29 billion of Monday.
Trading opened to relatively weak sentiment.
Overnight in London, profit-taking had taken its toll, helping to push the index down 35 points by 10.15 am.
Over the next 45 minutes the index turned around and climbed back to 9,700, a level it held below for most of the session.
