Hong Kong stocks close higher for fifth straight day, marking best weekly advance in a year
Hang Seng Index closed higher on Friday driven by Chinese banks and insurers
Hong Kong stocks closed higher for the fifth consecutive day after swinging between gains and losses in the morning, marking the best weekly advance in over a year, driven mainly by Chinese banks and insurers as worries over tightening monetary policies in China and the US eased.
The Hang Seng Index rose 0.16 per cent, or 43.06 points, to 26,389.23 on Friday. Throughout the week, the local benchmark gained for five consecutive days, amounting to a weekly gain of 4.1 per cent, or 1,048 points, the best since July 2015.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 0.47 per cent, or 50.63 points, to 10,728.07.
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission on Thursday pledged that it would step out from “behind the scenes” and use its existing legal powers to regulate listed companies more directly and proactively, a move that may lead to rejections of listing applications or delistings of certain companies with financial problems.
The planned policy by the SFC could mean southbound flows and Hong Kong investors will buy bigger companies instead of smaller ones
Kenny Wen, a wealth management strategist at Sun Hung Kai Financial, said such a move may divert money into bigger companies from smaller ones, bolstering the Hang Seng Index in the coming weeks.