The Hang Seng fell for a third day, losing 0.7 per cent to 17,172.13 on Friday, taking the decline in the week to 3.6 per cent. The Tech Index lost 1 per cent while the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.7 per cent to trade near an 11-month low.
Alibaba Group dropped 0.8 per cent to HK$78.50 while rival e-commerce platform operator JD.com eased 0.6 per cent to HK$96.65. Tencent weakened 0.8 per cent to HK$289, Baidu declined 3.2 per cent to HK$104.30 and Meituan retreated 2.4 per cent to HK$107.80.
CATL, the world’s biggest maker of EV batteries, said third-quarter earnings rose 10.7 per cent in the slowest gain since the start of 2022. China Telecom lost 1.6 per cent to HK$3.71 before its earnings results. Bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing erased a 0.9 per cent drop, as investment income masked a weak core business as IPOs dwindled amid weak transaction volume.
Red flags for China’s earnings season as Alibaba, JD.com price targets slashed
Red flags for China’s earnings season as Alibaba, JD.com price targets slashed
A rebound in China equities will be “much longer delayed than we expected,” said Patrick Pan, strategist at Daiwa. China’s property debt woes, rising geopolitical risks and soaring US government bond yields have dominated markets, with investors ignoring better-than-expected economic data, he said.
Foreign investors sold 24 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) worth of mainland-listed stocks via Stock Connect this week, bringing the net selling to over 160 billion yuan in the past 10 weeks, the most on record, according to data compiled by Daiwa.
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Protesters on both sides of Israel-Hamas conflict flood streets around the world
Protesters on both sides of Israel-Hamas conflict flood streets around the world
They have surrendered half of their purchases since China’s reopening in late 2022, Daiwa said. In Hong Kong, foreign ownership of H shares has declined to 37.1 per cent by September from 44 per cent in early 2020, it estimated.
Major Asian markets slipped on Friday. South Korea’s Kospi slumped 1.7 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.2 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.5 per cent.