sam88 2008-2-12 08:57 AM
Asian stocks sink after US market plunge
Asian stocks sink after US market plunge
The Year of Rat opened on a weak note for Hong Kong stocks, which tumbled yesterday on their first trading day of the Lunar New Year, weighed down by continued worries over a US-led global economic slowdown.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index slumped 3.64 percent, or 853.35 points, to close at HSI 22,616.11, extending the 5.4 percent plunge the benchmark suffered in Wednesday's half-day session before the holiday break.
Yesterday's close was its lowest in three weeks.
"This was quite bad," said Ample Finance Group director Alex Wong Kwok-ying. "Trading was quite thin, but the support for the market was much weaker than expected."
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Mainboard turnover was light at HK$76.43 billion, as investors waited on the sidelines in the absence of a clear direction from local and overseas markets.
"Compared to the Year of Pig, there are uncertainties in the Year of Rat. The financial market this year will be quite volatile," said the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Caejer Chan Ka-keung. Chan said the US subprime problem had not bottomed out yet and would continue to affect global financial markets for some time.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of H-shares fell 4.11 percent, or 536.51 points, to 12,530.6.
First Shanghai Securities strategist Linus Yip Sheung-chi said the market had been oversold with the HSI losing 8.84 percent in the past one-and-a-half sessions.
The HSI opened 64 points lower yesterday, ending a 11-year run of opening higher after the Lunar New Year break.
The last time the index opened down on the first trading day after the Lunar New Year break was in 1996 - also the Year of Rat .
