HK Stocks Plummet 1.53 Percent Following Nasdaq's FallHong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index Friday ended the week back toward the 17,000 level after testing 18,000 at the start of the week.Profit taking starting on Thursday after the market's recent rally, accelerated on Friday following Nasdaq's second consecutive day of losses. Hong Kong stocks fell 266.16 points, or 1.53 percent, to close at 17,183.93 Friday, with the day's turnover jumping up to 15.812 billion HK dollars (2.027 billion US dollars), 1.519 billion HK dollars (about 195 million US dollars) more than Thursday's trading figure. Banking giant HSBC Holdings, the most active stock, accounted for 3.437 billion HK dollars of the market turnover. Analysts here said that Nasdaq's plunge worried Hong Kong investors, but domestic factors could boost the market in the later trade. The market's fundamentals are still good and institutional investors, who have been more or less sidelined this week, are waiting to come in at lower levels when the July futures contract is over, they said. Of the four sub-indexes of the HSI, Finance, Utilities, Properties and Commerce & Industry all lost 1.56 percent, 0.23 percent, 0.80 percent and 1.82 percent, respectively. Hang Seng China Enterprises Index and Hang Seng China- Affiliated Corp Index continued to drop by 2.62 percent and 2.31 percent. Hang Seng IT Index and Hang Seng IT Portfolio Index fell 2.23 percent and 1.92 percent. |
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