Hong Kong Market gains on US-China trade deal hopes

Headline indices of the Hong Kong share market closed higher on Monday, 25 February 2019, with the market mood buoyed by Wall Street's rise late last week and upbeat trade tweeting from the US President. At closing bell, the Hang Seng Index rose 143 points or 0.5% to 28,959.30. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index added 203.74 points or 1.78% to 11,631.03. Turnover soared to HK$168.8 billion, the highest since 2 November 2018, from HK$109 billion on Friday.

US President Donald Trump said via his Twitter feed that he would be delaying the tariff increase initially planned for 1 March 2019 deadline, thanks to 'very productive' trade talks between the two countries. According to wire reports he also said that a summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could be on the cards if more progress is made. There have been positive steps on intellectual property, technology, agriculture and currency policy, the US President said.

 

Trump had planned to raise tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports if a deal between the world's two largest economies was not reached by March 1. Mr. Trump said progress had been made on a host of divisive areas including intellectual property protection, technology transfers, agriculture, services and currency.

Blue chips were mixed. HSBC (00005) edged down 0.3% to HK$64.2. HKEX (00388) jumped 2.6% to HK$273.8. Tencent (00700) nudged down 0.1% to HK$343.8. China Mobile (00941) dipped 2.8% to HK$82.65. AIA (01299) edged up 0.1% to HK$76.6.

China Resources Power (00836), which will be removed from the blue-chip index, slid 5% to HK$14.88. It was the worst blue-chip loser. Meanwhile, HSI newcomer Techtronic Industries (00669) soared 6.6% to HK$50.75.

China Chairman Xi Jinping presided over a group study session of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau on Friday. He said the country should keep a fine balance between maintaining growth and forestalling risks and deal with risks in key areas in a targeted and effective manner, adding that China should deepen opening-up of the financial sector. Chinese brokerages soared across the board. Central China Securities (01375) surged 25.5% to HK$2.95. CITIC Securities (06030) gained 4.2% to HK$20.4. China Securities (06066) shot up 6.9% to HK$7.9. Everbright Securities (06178) gained 10% to HK$9.36. China Galaxy Securities (06881) also mounted 10% to HK$5.94. Haitong Securities (06837) bounced 5% to HK$11.26.

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