Stock Talk | Hong Kong stocks are tipped to open higher as Chinese PM Wen urges boost to growth
Hong Kong stocks are expected to open higher after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for targeted efforts to ensure steady export growth and after new hints from the United States re-ignited hopes of further quantitative easing in the world's biggest economy.
Hong Kong stocks are expected to rise at the open after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged targeted efforts to ensure steady export growth and after new hints from the United States reignited hopes of further quantitative easing in the world's biggest economy.
China's Wen said during a trip to Guangzhou on Friday that the nation should pay "close attention" to the difficulties facing the export sector and the uncertainty over whether exports would meet a full-year growth target, according to a statement released on the State Council's website.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index (HSI) fell 1.25 per cent to close at 19,880.03 on Friday, posting its biggest single-day decline in nearly a month, on fears that China and US would not roll out further easing measures despite slowing growth.
However, US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a letter to a congressional oversight panel overnight on Friday that the central bank still has room to deliver additional monetary stimulus to boost the US economy, bolstering hopes of further quantitative easing.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 9.05 points, or 0.65 percent, to 1,411.13 last Friday. In London, the FTSE 100 index closed flat at 5,776.6.
In Europe, plans by the European Central Bank (ECB) to fight crisis by buying bonds faced more uncertainty after Deutsche Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann on Sunday reiterated criticism of the ECB's bond-purchasing plans. Weidmann, a former economic adviser to Merkel, said in a front-page interview in influential German magazine Der Spiegel that the bond buys could violate rules against the ECB providing outright financing to governments.
