Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index tumbled 3.51 percent Monday with every one of the benchmark index's 43 constituents settling lower, following a decline on Wall Street last Friday and concerns about the Chinese mainland taking further tightening measures.
The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 967.06 points, or 3.51 percent, to 26,596.58 after fluctuating between 26,551.37 and 27, 245.51 during the session. Turnover totaled 104.44 billion HK dollars (13.43 billion U.S. dollars), down from 111.78 billion HK dollars (14.35 billion U.S. dollars) last Friday.
Some analysts said the market will likely remain volatile in the last two weeks of the year and the benchmark index may end 2007 around the 25,000 point-level on an anticipated U.S. economic slowdown.
But some analysts expected the market to stage a technical rebound in the near term as the Hang Sang Index has fallen more than 2,600 points, or 9 percent, in the past four sessions.
The slump in Hong Kong market Monday followed the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1.3 percent Friday to 13,339.85 after the U.S. government reported higher-than-expected consumer price inflation, which increases pressure on the Federal Reserve not to cut interest rates further.
A comment from a high-level official of People's Bank of China that excessive lending can cause property market bubbles also raised concern about more curbs on Chinese mainland's real-estate market.
The Hang Seng property sub-index moved down 6.11 percent to close at 34,500.56, following by the Commerce and Industry at 3.25 percent, the Finance at 3.15 percent and the Utilities at 2.70 percent.
Chinese property developer China Overseas slid 5 percent to 14. 20 HK dollars and blue-chip Sun Hung Kai Properties, which recently said it would team up with two Chinese mainland's developers in Guangzhou, plunged 6.5 percent to 148.90 HK dollars.
On Chinese telecom stocks front, China Mobile was down 3.92 percent, China Unicom down 1.26 percent, Netcom down 2.5 percent, and China Telecom down 3.64 percent.
The six banks continuously declined in the fears over more austerity measures from the Chinese mainland at weekend. ICBC, CCB, Bank of China, CM Bank, Bankcomm and CITIC Bank shed 1.73 percent to 3.58 percent.
(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2007)
