Reuters: Hot Stocks: China, Hong Kong shares fall on tightening worries, property crackdown

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

China, Hong Kong shares fall on tightening worries, property crackdown Feb 21st 2013, 05:00 Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:00am EST * Hong Kong's HSI index down 1.8 pct * China's CSI300 falls 3.25 pct * Property, finance shares hit * Mainland investors concerned about policy tightening (Updates to afternoon, adds Hong Kong markets) By Yimou Lee and Pete Sweeney HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Feb 21 (Reuters) - China markets resumed their decline on Thursday, after a one-day recovery on Wednesday, dampened by fresh worries about monetary tightening and expansion of property sector curbs. In Hong Kong, the blue chip Hang Seng Index fell 1.8 percent to 22,897.63 by the midday break. The China Enterprises Index of the top Chinese listings in Hong Kong fell 2.4 percent. Both indexes were at their lowest since Jan. 2. The property sector took a hit after China's cabinet on Wednesday restated its intention to extend a pilot property tax programme to more cities and urged local authorities again to put price control targets on new homes. In Hong Kong, Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd fell 3 percent, while Sun Hung Kai Properties dropped 2.6 percent. New World Development Co Ltd slid 3.5 percent. "I don't think it's going to have a drastic fundamental change at the moment," said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong, adding that the impact to Chinese real estate plays was limited as the sector had already pulled back since January amid ongoing concerns on property curbs. China Overseas Land, which has dropped 5.9 percent so far this year, gained 0.2 percent on Thursday, while China Resources Land rose 0.2 percent. Belle International Holdings Ltd, China's top footwear retailer, dropped as much as 16 percent in the morning session after it said its 2012 profit would come in at the lower end of expectations, just marginally higher than in 2011. Shares in the company closed at a record high on Wednesday. "The reason for the drop was due to overestimation of sales results by analysts," said Patrick Yiu, a director at CASH Asset Management. "Most of the analysts were still quite bullish on the China retail sector." Macau gambling stocks remained weak for the third consecutive day as analysts said short-term consolidation may last one to two months as the sector pulls back from recent gains. MAINLAND MARKETS China's CSI300 index, which tracks the country's largest listed firms, slid more than 3 percent on concerns that recent central bank behavior signalled the beginning of a tightening cycle. The Shanghai Composite Index declined 2.7 percent. Mainland investors were worried that the central bank was draining funds more aggressively than expected, said Chen Shaodan, analyst at New Times Securities, which she said had sparked worries that a sustained drain on liquidity is in the offing, depressing stock prices. The People's Bank of China let a net 910 billion yuan ($145.89 billion) drain from the interbank market this week. In addition, the central bank this week returned to using longer-term forward repos to drain funds, instead of reverse repos which inject funds, for the first time since June. But a money market dealer in China's interbank market said that the PBOC operations were mostly intended to offset the record-high injection the central bank made prior to the Chinese Spring Festival holiday, which saw markets close for a week. GRAPHIC: PBOC injections versus the Shanghai Composite Index link.reuters.com/xev95t ($1 = 6.2376 Chinese yuan) (Additional reporting by Chen Yixin and Gabriel Wildau; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions