China stocks dip after data shows economy’s contraction, while cuts in mortgage rates boost property developers in Hong Kong

Name: Panic buying grips Beijing supermarkets as lockdown rumours circulate
Uploaded: 2022-05-16T04:07:16.000Z
Duration: 1 min 40 s
Description: Panic buying grips Beijing supermarkets as lockdown rumours circulate

Shanghai Composite Index drops 0.3 per cent while Hang Seng Index rises 0.3 per cent as property developers such as Country Garden and Longfor Group rallied

Both Chinese industrial production and retail sales contracted last month

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Hang Seng Index displayed outside Dah Sing Bank in Central on 20 April 2021. Photo: Dickson Lee

Zhang Shidong

Published: 12:07pm, 16 May 2022Updated: 5:53pm, 16 May 2022

China’s stocks dropped by the most in more than two weeks, after official data showed that economic activity contracted in April, offsetting a cut in mortgage rates and an announcement about the phased lifting of Shanghai’s lockdown. A rally in property developers lifted Hong Kong stocks.

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.3 per cent to 3,073.75 at the close, the biggest loss since April 26. The Shenzhen Composite Index in southern China fell 0.3 per cent to 1,926.01. The Hang Seng Index rose 0.3 per cent at the close to 19,950.21 in see-sawing trading, with the benchmark changing directions 10 times throughout the trading day.

The Hang Seng Tech Index was little changed after JPMorgan Chase upgraded the rating on some of China’s biggest technology companies, saying that uncertainty had receded in the industry. Two months earlier, the bank said the sector was “uninvestable,” a description that the bank said was published “in error.”

Alibaba Group Holding, China’s largest e-commerce platform an owner of this newspaper, rose 2.9 per cent to HK$84.60. Xiaomi, one of China’s largest maker of smartphones, rose 0.7 per cent to HK$11.12. Baidu, China’s dominant internet search engine, rose 2.1 per cent to HK$113.20 in Hong Kong.

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Panic buying grips Beijing supermarkets as lockdown rumours circulate

Hong Kong’s currency weakened to as low as 7.8500 against the US dollar, hitting a mark for the fifth day that will prompt more intervention from the Hong Kong government, which will defend the local dollar’s peg to the US dollar to ward off capital flight.

Country Garden Holdings rose 10.4 per cent to HK$4.88, while Longfor Group Holdings advanced by 4.8 per cent to HK$38 on the Hong Kong exchange, Chinese regulators cut mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers in a bid to spur growth. China Overseas Land and Investment (Coli) gained 2.2 per cent to HK$23.70.