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The Hong Kong stock market hit a new lifetime high on Monday, leading another day of strong gains for equity markets in Asia Pacific triggered by an advance on Wall Street Friday.
The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index was up 1.1 per cent at 149.87 late afternoon in Tokyo, set for its highest close since Aug. 9, according to Bloomberg. The index jumped 8.1 per cent last week, the most since March 2002.
The Hang Seng closed 2.9 per cent higher at 23,577.73 and has now reclaimed all the losses of the past few weeks of credit-crunch turmoil, since hitting its previous peak of 23,472.88 on July 24.
Hong Kong continued to benefit from optimism surrounding Beijing’s decision last week to allow individual mainland investors to buy shares directly in the territory’s stock market.
China Construction Bank rose 5.3 per cent to close at HK$6.15 after reporting higher profits over the weekend. Investors shrugged off CCB’s revelation of US$1.1bn in securities backed by subprime loans – relatively low exposure compared with bigger rivals such as Bank of China and ICBC.
Mainland markets also continued to rally. The Shanghai Composite closed 0.8 per cent higher at 5,150.12, just off a fresh record high high set earlier in the day.
“Asia has endured this particular down draught from the US very well,” said Malcolm Wood, head of Morgan Stanley’s Asia-Pacific ex-Japan strategy team in Hong Kong. “[But] if you strip out Hong Kong and China, every other market in still down 11 to 13 per cent from the peak.”
The Japanese stock market rose mildly. The Nikkei 225 inched up 0.3 per cent to 16,301.39, while the Topix gained 0.1 per cent to 1,587.76. Traders were reluctant to push up prices strongly ahead of US figures on home sales to be announced later in the day.
Some export-focused shares gained from continuing yen weakness. By the late Tokyo afternoon the dollar was trading at Y116.2, similar to Friday’s close but considerably stronger than last week’s low of Y111.6.
The largely exports-driven autos sector advanced 0.8 per cent. Toyota Motor, the world’s biggest carmaker, was 0.6 per cent higher at Y6,700.
Fresh demand for carry trades helped the Australian dollar to rise by 0.5 per cent to 83.17 US cents, and the New Zealand dollar was 0.4 per cent stronger at 72.41 US cents.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index rose 1.6 per cent to 6,185.20. Higher profits helped to push up the retailer Woolworths by 1.8 per cent higher to close at A$28.19. Mining stocks also advanced, with BHP Billiton gaining 2.7 per cent to A$37.57 and Rio Tinto adding 2.7 per cent to A$91.73.
Elsewhere in the region, Singapore’s Straits Times index ended up 1 per cent at 3,401.58. The Jakarta Composite index rose 1.5 per cent to 2,175.35.