Hong Kong stocks narrowed gains in afternoon trading to end 1.02 percent higher on Wednesday, with the benchmark Hang Seng Index once moving near the 19,000 mark to find resistance and retreating thereafter.

The key barometer of the market opened up 1.24 percent at 18, 616.94 and rose to 18,808.77 at lunch break. It moved between 18, 508.30 and 18,967.39 during the day's trading on market turnover of 90.63 billion HK dollars (11.62 billion U.S. dollars), compared with Tuesday's 101.86 billion HK dollars (13.16 billion U.S. dollars).

Market heavyweight HSBC, whose weighting in the blue chip index will be adjusted down from 20.11 percent to 15 percent with a ceiling that will be imposed starting next Monday, reversed early gains to end 1.76 percent lower at 66.85 HK dollars. It alone contributed 63.86 points to the fall of the Hang Seng Index.

The HSI index futures were trading at a discount of 280 points, suggesting that the market was likely to correct in the near term, analysts said.

Hang Seng Bank, the local unit of HSBC, surged 6.6 HK dollars, or 6.17 percent, to close at 113.6 HK dollars, joining the local banking stocks to catch up with the gains of local property shares.

BOC Hong Kong rose 5.60 percent to close at 13.96 HK dollars and Bank of East Asia surged 1.2 HK dollars, or 4.52 percent, at 27.75 HK dollars.

Cheung Kong, the business conglomerate headed by Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing, rose 1.49 percent to close at 95.6 HK dollars.

Sun Hung Kai Properties, the leading residential housing developer in Hong Kong, surged 3.05 HK dollars, or 3.12 percent, to close at 100.7 HK dollars.

HKEx, the only stock exchange operator in Hong Kong, rose 2.85 percent to close at 126.3 HK dollars, which is the highest for the blue chip in about 10 months.

The China Enterprises Index, which tracked the performance of top mainland firms, rose 1.76 percent to close at 10,825.20, with telecommunications giant China Mobile adding 1.45 HK dollars, or 1.88 percent, at 78.65 HK dollars.

Its smaller rival China Unicom, in contrast, lost 3.32 percent at 11.08 HK dollars.

The finance sub-index of HSI was up 0.64 percent and most of the mainland financial players were gainers. ICBC, the biggest commercial lender, advanced 1.02 percent. China Construction Bank was up 1.38 percent and Bank of China was up 1.46 percent.

Insurance giant China Life advanced 1.88 percent and Ping An was up 0.97 percent.

The energy shares ended mixed, with PetroChina up 1.88 percent and CNOOC up 0.37 percent, while Sinopec and China Shenhua down 0.33 percent and 0.74 percent, respectively.

The dry shippers were mostly gainers thanks to the overnight surge of the Baltic Dry Index. COSCO Pacific was up 4.95 percent and China COSCO up 9.38 percent. (7.8 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)

Source: Xinhua