HONG KONG: Hong Kong stocks fell to a two-week low on Wednesday, posting their biggest monthly fall in two years, amid fears of a faster pace of US rate rises.
The Hang Seng index fell 1.4 percent, to 30,844.72, while the China Enterprises Index lost 2.1 percent, to 12,382.08 points.
The IT sector dipped 2.39 percent, the financial sector was 1.49 percent lower while the property sector dipped 0.9 percent.
The top gainer on Hang Seng was WH Group Ltd, up 2.64 percent, while the biggest loser was China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd which was down 4.04 percent.
China's main Shanghai Composite index closed down 1 percent at 3,259.41 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended down 0.87 percent.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 1.12 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 1.44 percent.
The yuan was quoted at 6.3311 per US dollar at 08:15 GMT, 0.22 percent weaker than the previous close of 6.317.
As of the previous trading session, the Hang Seng index was up 4.51 percent this year, while China's H-share index was up 8.0 percent. As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has declined 4.92 percent this month.
The top gainers among H-shares were CGN Power Co Ltd up 0.47 percent, followed by Huaneng Power International Inc gaining 0.21 percent and China Railway Group Ltd up by 0.18 percent.
The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd, which was down 3.69 percent, CITIC Securities Co Ltd, which fell 3.5 percent, and New China Life Insurance Co Ltd, down by 3.3 percent.
About 2.48 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 81.7 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 3.04 billion shares a day. Volume in the previous trading session was 2.66 billion.
At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 27.45 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.
The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 13.5 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 2.8 percent.
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