HONG KONG: China and Hong Kong stocks fell on Friday, pressured by weakening liquidity ahead of robot maker Unitree’s high-profile Shanghai IPO and remained cautious amid mid-year earning reports season.
China’s blue-chip CSI300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index closed largely flat. Both indexes also finished the week slightly down.
Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng declined 1.1 percent, down 2.2 percent for the week.
Analysts said caution ahead of interim earnings results kept investors on the sidelines, while the Unitree IPO drained some liquidity from the market.
Unitree, the country’s most high-profile humanoid robot maker, is widely expected to have an blockbuster stock market debut in Shanghai next week.
In A-shares, insurance, healthcare and real estate sectors led the decline, while communications and rare-earth shares outperformed.
In Hong Kong, property giant CK Asset lost 6.4 percent after the firm declared no special dividend despite strong mid-term earnings.
Hang Seng Tech dropped 1.8 percent, with index heavyweight JD.com plunging 10 percent due to a drop in second-quarter revenue.
Semiconductor giant Hua Hong Grace lost 12 percent in Hong Kong and 8.6 percent in mainland after the firm gave weaker-than-expected third quarter revenue guidance.
China’s widening cross-border tax collection has also weighed on sentiment, market participants said.
“Hong Kong financials have come under pressure following news that China may impose taxes on offshore insurance income, raising concerns over potentially tighter controls on offshore investments from mainland China,” Kelly Chung, chief investment officer for multi-assets at Value Partners, said in a note.
For both China and Hong Kong, worsening domestic demand and concentrated positioning remain headwinds, she added.
The smaller Shenzhen index was up 0.33 percent, the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was higher by 1.12 percent and Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR50 index was unchanged for the day.
Comments