Hong Kong stocks post second straight session of gains as Tencent, other new economy giants continue to climb
- Tuesday’s big property winner Wharf REIC slides
- ATMs – Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan Dianping – advance
Hong Kong stocks rose for the second straight day, as Tencent climbed on news it is pushing to create a US$10 billion video game streaming giant and China oil giants advanced on rising oil prices.
Hang Seng Index heavyweight Tencent shot up 2 per cent on Wednesday, as Bloomberg reported it is pushing for a merger of China’s biggest video game-streaming platforms, Huya and DouYu International Holdings. The WeChat operator and video games behemoth owns a 37 per cent stake in Huya and 38 per cent of DouYu.
“Investors started to return to the market [in recent days] as they saw new economy stocks and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing [the exchange operator] regained momentum, leading to more confidence in the market,” said Stanley Chan, director of research at Emperor Securities. “There’s still room for the [Hang Seng Index] to rise. It will not be surprising if it climbs to 25,500 to 25,800 in one to two weeks,” Chan said.
The Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.3 per cent higher at 3,381.35, its seventh gain in the past eight sessions and finishing at its highest level in three weeks. The tech-heavy ChiNext advanced 1 per cent.
Traders weighed new data out of the mainland that showed China’s services sector continued to grow in July but at a slower pace than in June. The Caixin/Markit services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) was at 54.1. Above 50 signals expansion. But the gauge slipped from 58.4 in June, a record high in more than a decade.
