BARTON Biggs, the man attributed with the seven-week Hang Seng index surge, yesterday triggered a market roller-coaster ride.
Following on from an overnight London plunge of blue chips, the market opened in free-fall around 9,326, down 181 points from Wednesday's close.
The slide at one point landed the index at 9,165.95 - the intra-day low, and a 341.02 point discount to the Wednesday close.
But bargain hunting, and probably some bullishness triggered by the passage of the NAFTA vote in Washington, later gathered force to counter the downward trend.
A day of running battles between buying and selling forces finally saw the index slump 171.55 points, or 1.8 per cent, to close at 9,335.43, with shares worth of $8.13 billion changing hands.
Sassoon Securities assistant general manager Michael Ng Wai-ming said the sellers were mostly US investors, with Hong Kong and Japanese investors mainly on the buying side.