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Hong Kong stock market
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China’s liquidity rush lifts Hong Kong stocks to best week in five months while investors ignore Biden’s warning

  • Hang Seng Index climbed by 2.4 per cent this week, its best performance for the five-day period since mid-February
  • Some Shanghai-based stocks jumped after China accorded the hub greater autonomy to offer tax breaks, incentives to entrench the city’s role

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Market receives a boost this week from signs of policy easing in China as the economy cools. Photo: AP
Zhang Shidongin Shanghai
Hong Kong stocks rose, with the benchmark set for the best weekly performance in five months after China injected cash in a sign of policy easing while tech stocks ended a two-week thrashing amid a regulatory clampdown.
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The Hang Seng Index added less than 0.1 per cent to 28,004.68 at the close of Friday trading. The advance this week of 2.4 per cent is the most since a 3 per cent gain in the five days to February 12. China’s Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.7 per cent.

Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing jumped at least 3.8 per cent. The 30-member Hang Seng Tech Index rose 2.5 per cent this week, the most since May 21, after suffering a cumulative 9.8 per cent beating in the preceding two weeks.

China’s central bank injected US$17 billion into the system through open-market operations on Thursday, the same day an official report showed the economy expanded slower than expected 7.9 per cent last quarter. Other monthly indicators showed factory, production, retail sales and exports in June beat market consensus. It lowered commercial banks’ reserve-requirement ratio (RRR) with effect from July 15, unleashing US$155 billion into the system.

“More evidence is needed, such as a series of RRR cuts and supportive policies in the infrastructure and real estate sectors, before concluding that Beijing is attempting to loosen policy,” analysts at BCA Research said in a note to clients on July 16. It earlier added that overall economic conditions “do not yet suggest that Chinese policymakers are looking to initiate a broad-based policy easing to spur demand.”

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