Ox puts on a spurt but still no match for Tiger
Two wrongs may make a right after all.
Following those bad omens over the Lunar New Year holiday - the picking of the worst possible fortune stick at Che Kung Temple and the fireworks barge going up in flames on the harbour - the Hang Seng Index bucked the negative trend to kick off the first trading day of the Year of the Ox with a welcome 4.58 per cent gain.
It was the best first-day performance since the Year of the Tiger in 1998, when the blue-chip index shot up 14.33 per cent.
It was also a good start for HSBC Holdings, whose shares rebounded 8.96 per cent to get back into the HK$60 region, tracking the performances of banks around the world this week.
However, we doubt if there will be any genuine buying before HSBC announces its full-year results on March 2, when we will get to know how bad things have been.
HSBC has yet to announce any profit warning, but we think it may do so later this year.
