Hong Kong stocks finish lower, ending 5-day rally

Hong Kong stocks reversed opening gains to close down 200.09 points, or 0.93 percent, at 21,299.35 on Monday, tracking losses on the Chinese mainland market and ending a five-day rally of the Hang Seng Index.

The benchmark index opened at the day's high of 21,623.33, but reversed early gains later. It once dipped to as low as 21,262.71 during the day's trading.

Turnover fell to a rather modest 44.18 billion HK dollars (5.71billion U.S. dollars) from Friday's 62.23 billion HK dollars (8.04billion U.S. dollars).

There were signs that the Hang Seng Index has tracked the Wall Street to gather moderate momentum over the past week, but resistance remained strong for the blue-chip index at 21,930, the recent high recorded in mid-September, analysts said.

Market heavyweight HSBC finished down 0.65 HK dollars, or 0.73 percent, at 88.1 HK dollars. Its local unit Hang Seng Bank was down 0.99 percent at 110.1 HK dollars.

China Mobile, the leading mobile carrier on the Chinese mainland, closed down 0.52 percent at 76.85 HK dollars. Smaller rival China Unicom tumbled 2.69 percent.

Henderson Land bucked trend to gain 0.6 HK dollars, or 1.16 percent, at 52.35 HK dollars, making it the only blue chip contributing gains to the index change.

All the four major categories lost ground, with the commerce and industry sub-index dropping the most at 1.28 percent, followed by the finance and the utilities, which both edged down 0.78 percent. The properties sub-index lost 0.52 percent.

Cheung Kong, the flagship of Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka- shing, lost 0.66 percent at 97.25 HK dollars, and Sun Hung Kai Properties, the largest residential housing developer in Hong Kong, lost 0.6 percent to close at 116.7 HK dollars.

The leading Chinese mainland commercial lenders also reversed morning gains in spite of announced buying in the mainland banking shares by the state-owned Central Huijin Investment Ltd. ICBC, the biggest commercial lender, was down 0.33 percent, and Bank of China was down 0.7 percent. China Construction Bank was down 0.46 percent.

The China Enterprises Index fell 0.96 percent to close at 12, 375.93.

The mainland oil shares were also lower, with PetroChina down 0. 97 percent, Sinopec down 1.32 percent, and offshore oil producer CNOOC down 0.89 percent.

HKEx, the sole exchange operator in Hong Kong, was down 1.32 percent.

(7.8 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)

Source:Xinhua