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Georgina Lee

Chinese stocks ended the day lower, dragged down by tech and energy firms.
The Hong Kong market was virtually flat as traders stayed on the sidelines ahead of Wednesday's crucial policy address
We'll be back tomorrow with all the action!
-- Georgina Lee and Anthony Richardson


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Stocks

Stocks Blog: 5G licences boost Hong Kong mobile providers; Geely Auto, BYD slip as electric vehicle sales plunge

Hong Kong's mobile operators saw their shares rise after securing 5G rights in an auction on Monday

Business

Markets


Hong Kong stocks end the day virtually flat


Foreign traders drink up Kweichow Moutai shares on profit optimism
	 



Hong Kong stocks flat as traders await Wednesday's policy address


China stock market

Hong Kong stock exchange

Banking & finance

A-shares

Liveblog

Live

A unit of state-owned infrastructure builder China Communications Construction (1800 HK) has agreed to buy a stake in an Indonesian company that won a contract to build a 170 kilometre (106 miles) toll road in the southeast Asian country.
  According to Reuters, the unit of CCC will pay US$1.65 billion for a stake in PT Jasamarga Probolinggo Banyuwangi, a unit of Indonesian state-owned toll road operator Jasa Marga, Bambang Brodjonegoro.
  The Jasa Marga unit will build a toll road connecting the city of Probolinggo to Banyuwangi in the eastern side of the main Java island.
-- Daniel Ren   


China Communications Construction unit to invest in Indonesian toll road

Chongqing Changan Automobile (0625 CH) the Chinese partner of Ford Motor, said it would post losses of up to 2.8 billion yuan (US$396 million) for the first three quarters of this year because of a sales decline amid the weak domestic  car market.
  The Shenzhen-listed carmaker said in an exchange filing on Monday evening that its losses between January and September would be in the range from 2.4 to 2.8 billion yuan, compared to net profits of 1.16 billion yuan it recorded in the same period last year.
  Ford said last week its mainland sales in July-to-September slumped 30 per cent to 131,060 units.
-- Daniel Ren   


Car maker Changan to post up to 2.8 billion yuan losses

Hong Kong’s monetary authority said it would cut the amount of capital that banks need to set aside, in the first reduction of the ratio since 2015 to release cash into the financial system to bolster it against any impact from political risks and the city’s unprecedented civic unrest.
  The city’s countercyclical capital buffer (CCB) will be reduced to 2 per cent effective immediately, from the previous 2.5 per cent, according to a statement by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).
  The cut will release between HK$200 billion and HK$300 billion (US$38 billion) into Hong Kong’s economy, according to Yue’s blog. The local economy is on track towards a technical recession in the fiscal third quarter ending in December, as four months of street protests had driven away visitors, crimped retail sales and cause property prices to slide.
For full story click here
-- Enoch Yiu and Peggy Sito   


Hong Kong releases up to HK$300 billion in city’s version of quantitative easing

Hong Kong stocks opened higher, up 0.33 per cent at 26,609.13. In China, the Shanghai Composite Index slipped by less than 0.1 per cent to 3,005.67, while the CSI 300, which tracks blue chips listed on Shenzhen and Shanghai, was flat at 3,953.17.
  On Monday, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said it would cut the city’s countercyclical capital buffer, the amount of capital that banks need to set aside, by 50 basis point to 2 per cent, the first such reduction since 2015.
  The cut will release between HK$200 billion and HK$300 billion into the economy, as the local economy is on track for a technical recession in the fiscal third quarter ending December. More than four months of often violent protests have taken a severe toll on retail sales and inbound tourists. The move comes ahead of the policy address to be delivered by the city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday.
  Leading the gains in percentage terms were knitwear product maker Shenzhou International (2313 HK), up 2 per cent, at HK$108.2; while casino operator Galaxy Entertainment (27 HK) was up 1.5 per cent at HK$52.
-- Georgina Lee


Hong Kong opens higher after cut in bank capital ratio to release HK$300 billion into economy

Pork producers in China rose, with Shenzhen Kondarl (000048 CH) up 6.4 per cent at 26.45 yuan , Chuying Agro-pastoral Group (002477 CH) jumping 2.8 per cent to 12.75 yuan, Guangdong Guanghong Holdings (000529 CH) 1.6 per cent higher at 6.31 yuan and Henan Shuanghui Investment (000895 CH) up 1.1 per cent at 25.29 yuan.
  Amid an outbreak of African swine fever, China’s pig population in September was 41.1 per cent down form a year ago, latest figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released on Monday showed.
  The country’s customs agency said it was increasing sources of imports to help rebuild the country’s live pig production capacity. China imported 1.3 million tonnes of pork in the first three quarters of this year, up 43.6 per cent year-on-year, the customs agency added.
-- Georgina Lee   


Pork-related stocks in China rise, country to increase imports to rebuild production

There's a "dispute overhang" in US-China relations, despite the recent detente, said Fidelity International's portfolio manager Raymond Ma. "This overhang is likely to be a longer-term ongoing theme, and while uncertainty remains around the timing of a full trade deal between both sides, Chinese equity markets are likely to be volatile," Ma said in an e-mailed commentary.
"The Chinese government has introduced a series of stimulus measures, and may introduce more policies with faster implementation to support China's economic growth, which is likely to support selected sectors."  These measures are incentives for infrastructure projects, tax cuts, and supply side reforms, he said.
-- Eugene Tang   


'Dispute overhang' between US and China despite detente, warns Fidelity

Germany-based EuroEyes International Eye Clinic (1846 HK) got off to a flying start on its stock market debut in Hong Kong, with its share price surging by more than half.
  EuroEyes’ shares shot up to HK$11.6 by mid-morning, 54.7 per cent higher than their initial offering price of HK$7.5.
  The company, one of Germany’s largest independent eye surgery groups, was the first foreign eye surgery chain to open in China in 2012. Now it runs six eye surgery clinics in the country and plans to open at least two more each year.
"The Chinese market is so huge that there’s space for everyone," said Jørn Slot Jørgensen, chairman and CEO. “Hong Kong is an entrance to China. That is the reason we have our Asia headquarter here to guide the growth in the China market.
“We still believe Hong Kong will play a major part in the world. We are going a little against the stream maybe, but [the demand] for eye surgeries will still increase in the future.”
It provides specialised corrective surgery for refractive vision errors in Denmark, Germany and China.
-- Holly Chik   


EuroEyes shares jump by more than half on debut

Lens Technology (300433 CH), which makes optical products for suppliers such as Apple, was the top stock by turnover in the northbound channel of the Shenzhen stock connect, with a total of 1.47 billion yuan traded in the first hour today. That indicates that overseas traders were ploughing money into the stock.
  The company said on Friday that it expects profit attributable to shareholders for the third quarter to rise between 105 per cent and 110 per cent from a year ago, to between 1.24 billion yuan and  1.27 billion yuan. On Monday, its stock surged by the maximum daily limit of 10 per cent on the news.

  Lens Technology was up 3.6 per cent at 13.97 yuan, its fourth straight day of gains. Year-to-date its share price has surged 115 per cent.
-- Georgina Lee


Foreign investors buy into Lens Technology on strong profit forecast

China’s pork crisis sent prices spiralling to their highest reading since November 2013 as consumer inflation reached 3.0 per cent in September, according to official government data released on Tuesday.
  The world’s most populous nation has been ravaged by an outbreak of African swine fever that added 1.65 percentage points to its consumer inflation last month.
  The 3.0 per cent mark is the upper limit of Beijing’s target for whole-year consumer price index (CPI), placing more pressure on the government to source new supplies of pork, with African swine fever predicted to wipe out half the pig population by the end of 2019.
Click here for full story.
-- Finbarr Bermingham and Frank Tang   


China’s pork crisis sends consumer inflation to the brink of Beijing’s limit

Shares of companies related to blockchain technology plummeted in China as facebook's plan to launch a global digital currency suffered another setback.
  A couple of stocks fell by the 10 per cent daily limit, with Netac Technology (300042 CH) down at 17.09 yuan and HyUnion Holding (002537 CH) at 9.54 yuan.
  Beijing Certificate Authority (300579 CH) dropped 9.8 per cent to 35.83 yuan, Jilin Jinguan Electric (300510 CH) was down 9.4 per cent at 68.16 yuan and Hebei Huijin Electromechanical (300368 CH) plunged 8.8 per cent at 9.69 yuan.
  Booking Holdings, the company behind travel site Booking.com, has become the latest company to pull out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project, according to media reports. That follows exits by a string of other companies, such as eBay, Mastercard and Visa.
-- Georgina Lee   


Blockchain, digital asset stocks drop as firms desert Facebook’s Libra project

The People’s Bank of China set the mid rate for the yuan at 7.0708 per US dollar today, down 17 pips from Monday. At about 11am, the currency was trading at 7.0730 per dollar, slightly weaker than the closing rate of 7.0669 on Monday.
  Some analysts are betting the yuan exchange rate will strengthen ahead of the APEC leaders' summit on November 16 and 17 in Chile, where Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump may meet to officially sign a partial trade deal reached last week.
-- Georgina Lee


Yuan trades slightly weaker as central bank lowers fixing rate

The distiller of fiery Chinese liquor was back on foreign investors’ radar. It was the top traded stock via the Shanghai stock connect in Hong Kong, with 2.51 billion yuan's worth of shares changing hands before the lunch break.
  Kweichow Moutai (600519 CH) is due to report its third quarter earnings on Thursday. Its stock was up 1.9 per cent at 1,202.08 yuan.
  In the first half of 2019, net profit attributable to shareholders rose 26.6 per cent from a year ago to 19.95 billion yuan.
-- Georgina Lee   


Foreign investors thirsty for liquor giant Kweichow Moutai's shares ahead of earnings

The Hang Seng Index gave up earlier gains to edge down by less than 0.1 per cent to 26,506.18 at the lunch break.
  Most major Hong kong property developers fell, with Sun Hung Kai Properties (16 HK) down 0.8 per cent at HK$111.5, New World Development (17 HK) slipping 0.6 per cent at HK$10.3, Hang Lung Properties (101 HK) losing 0.5 per cent at HK$18 and Sino Land (1177) down 0.3 per cent at HK$11.94.
  Their declines came ahead of Wednesday's policy address to be delivered by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, which will be keenly observed for clues as to the government’s measures on how to alleviate the city’s housing problem. The city has been engulfed in more than four months of anti-government protest, which Beijing has blamed on the city’s unaffordable housing.
-- Georgina Lee


Hong Kong edges down at lunch break, gives up morning gains

The Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.5 per cent at 2,991.9 at the lunch break, weighed down by technology and communication equipment stocks.
  360 Security Tech (601360 CH) lost 3.9 per cent to 24.4 yuan, Shengyi Technology (600183 CH) was down 8.3 per cent at 25.61 yuan and Foxconn Industrial Internet (601138 CH) slipped 1.4 per cent to 14.99 yuan.
  In Shenzhen, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Tech (002145 CH) lost 1.9 per cent to  30.38 yuan, while NavInfo (002405 CH)  was down 9.9 per cent at 15.17 yuan. The Shenzhen Component Index was down 1 per cent at 9,688.51.
-- Georgina Lee


Tech stocks drag Chinese benchmarks lower at lunch break

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is not too impressed with the Hong Kong government's HK$19.1 billion stimulus package to support the economy.
  It said the measures - which include tax rebates, a one-off electricity charge subsidy, and a month’s rent wavier for lower income tenants of government housing - will take a while to take effect, as they required the legislature’s approval after it resumes its sessions on October 16.
  The bank said risks are currently tilted to the downside of its growth forecasts. So in the worst-case scenario, it expects GDP to contract by 0.5 per cent in 2019 from a year ago, and by 1.8 per cent next year.
  The city’s tourism, retail, hotel and catering sectors have suffered a blow from the protests that have raged in the city since June. In August, inbound tourist arrivals plummeted 39.1 per cent from a year ago, with visitors from mainland China down 42.3 per cent.
-- Georgina Lee   


Bank of America Merrill Lynch unimpressed by Hong Kong's stimulus measures

Four mobile operators in Hong Kong won the rights to provide future 5G services in the telecom regulator’s auction on Monday.
  A total of 200 MHz of the 5G spectrum, a technology that would allow for driverless cars and other applications enabled by the so-called Internet of things, was auctioned off to Hutchison Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom, China Mobile Hong Kong, and SmarTone Telecom. The sale generated HK$1 billion in fees for the government.
The assignment of the spectrum bandwidth will take effect from next April, for a period of 15 years.
  Hutchison Telecom (215 HK) rose 4.3 per cent to  HK$1.44, Hong Kong Telecom (6823 HK) gained 1 per cent to HK$12.44, and SmarTone Telecom (315 HK) moved up 2.1 per cent to HK$6.9,


Hong Kong mobile operators' stocks rise on successful 5G bids

Geely Auto (175 HK) was down 2.6 per cent at HK$13.3, while BYD (1211 HK) lost 1.7 per cent to HK$38.35, Brilliance China (1114 HK) fell 1.9 per cent to  HK$8.46 and Greatwall Motor (2333 HK) lost 1.1 per cent to HK$5.2.
  On Monday, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that sales of new-energy vehicles dropped 34.2 per cent in September from a year ago, the third monthly decline in a row.
  Earlier this year, subsidies given to makers of electric cars were cut by up to 60 per cent, as the government tried to spur more competition in the sector based on innovation and weed out makers of low quality cars who had previously relied on subsidies to survive. 
-- Georgina Lee


Chinese carmakers fall as electric vehicles sales outlook darkens

The benchmark Shanghai Composite ended the day 0.6 per cent lower, at 2,991.05, while the CSI 300, which tracks blue chips listed in Shenzhen and Shanghai, was down 0.4 per cent at 3,936.25.
  Leading the key indices down were information technology stocks, as 360 Security Tech (601360 CH) dropped 5.4 per cent to 24.03 yuan and Sanan Optoelectronic (600703 CH) fell 6.2 per cent to  13.53 yuan.
  PetroChina (601857 CH) was down 0.8 per cent at 6.11 yuan, and China Yantze Power (600900 CH) slid 1.8 per cent to close at 17.9 yuan.
  Limiting the losses were liquor stocks, as distillery giant Kweichow Moutai (600519 CH) gained 2.6 per cent to 1,211 yuan and Shanxi Xinghuacun Fen Wine Factory (600809 CH) finished the day 8 per cent higher at 86.3 yuan.
  “If the Shanghai Composite Index could break through the two peaks seen in July and September, at 3,048 and 3,042 respectively, it will trigger another wave of buying demand and fuel further uptrend of the index,” said Linus Yip, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities.
-- Georgina Lee


Technology, energy shares drag China stock market down

The Hang Seng Index finished at 26,503.93, down less than 0.1 per cent and snapping three straight days of gains. Trading was mixed, with the benchmark hovering in a narrow range of 176 points.
  A sense of vigilance prevailed, as turnover on the main board shrank to about HK$76 billion from HK$90 billion on Monday.
  China Mobile (941 HK) weighed on the index, falling 0.8 per cent to HK$65.85. China Unicom (762 HK) dropped 2.9 per cent to close at HK$8.39.
  But counterbalancing the losses in Hong Kong were some index heavyweights. Social media giant Tencent (700 HK) edged up 0.2 per cent to HK$328.8 and China Construction Bank (939 HK) gained  0.6 per cent to HK$6.26.
  “Given the state of Hong Kong’s social unrest and economic downturn, traders will put more focus on this year’s policy address to be delivered by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor Wednesday, more so than before. The market will closely watch for more details on the government’s land and housing policies,” said Linus Cheung, chief strategist at First Shanghai Securities.
-- Georgina Lee


Hong Kong stocks end flat as traders wait for Wednesday policy address