Hong Kong stocks fell on Friday, led down by property and information technology (IT) firms tracking their Chinese peers, with sentiment dented by Wall Street’s weakness on concerns about the progress of US tax reform.
At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was down 318.27 points, or 1.09 percent, at 28,848.11. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index fell 1.44 percent to 11,365.92.
The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 1.2 percent while the IT sector dipped 1.71 percent, the financial sector was 1.22 percent lower and property sector dipped 0.8 percent.
The top gainer on Hang Seng was Galaxy Entertainment Group (銀河娛樂), up 1.48 percent, while the biggest loser was Country Garden Holdings Co (碧桂園), which was down 2.85 percent.
China’s main Shanghai Composite index closed down 0.8 percent at 3,266.1503 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended down 1.12 percent.
So far this year, the Hang Seng index has gained 32.57 percent, while China’s H-share index rose 22.7 percent. As of Friday’s close, the Hang Seng has declined 0.04 percent this month.
The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday ended down 46.57 points, or 0.44 percent, at 10,491.44. The index is up 0.9 percent from last week’s 10,398.62 points.
MSCI Asia-Pacific Index on Friday fell 1 percent to 170 points, up 0.5 percent from last week’s 169.13 points.
About 2.06 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded on Friday, about 103.7 percent of the market’s 30-day moving average of 1.99 billion shares a day.
The volume traded in the previous trading session was 2.02 billion.
At close, China’s A-shares were trading at a premium of 29.42 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.
The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 13.3 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 3 percent.
Japan’s TOPIX on Friday fell 0.8 percent at the close in Tokyo and was down 0.6 percent over the week.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined 0.6 percent on Friday.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.2 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.5 percent.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg, staff writer and CNA
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