FB: Hong Kong shares drop 1.3 pct as banks set the tone
Hong Kong shares fell 1.3 percent on Friday, with HSBC leading losses amid a global rout in bank stocks, while China stocks also retreated after Beijing failed to deliver new stimulus spending.
HSBC was down 1.9 percent at HK$43.95, its lowest level in nearly 13 years, shedding the small gain it made the previous session. Its Hong Kong unit, Hang Seng Bank, slid for a fifth straight day, falling 5.28 percent to HK$75.30, after the lender reported a sharp drop in second half earnings on Monday.
'You just have to look at how Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Barclays performed on Thursday to understand why banking stocks are down today. Fear has gripped the sector,' said Alex Wong, director with Ample Finance.
Wong said losses in HSBC shares were limited ahead of the Hang Seng Index rebalancing, which will see the stock's weighting increased to 15 percent from 11.33 percent when it comes into effect on Monday. After the rebalancing, HSBC will overtake China Mobile to become the most heavily weighted stock on the main index.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index ended the morning session down 155.25 points at 12,055.99.
Other financial stocks were also hit, with local lender BOC Hong Kong down 3.6 percent while Bank of East Asia , where both the CEO and the CFO have resigned, dropped 3 percent to HK$13.64.
But Chinese lender China Construction Bank rose 0.5 percent ahead of the index rebalancing which will boost its weighting to 8.01 percent from 5.9 percent.
Canada's top insurer, Manulife Financial Corp , took another tumble, sliding 10.3 percent to HK$62.15 after its Toronto-listed scrip plunged on Thursday.
The stock has lost nearly 50 percent of its market value in the last two weeks as global markets dropped, hitting the insurer's key regulatory capital ratio.
Turnover came in at HK$20.4 billion.
The China Enterprises Index of top mainland firms was down 1.4 percent at 6,805.69.
Shares in offshore oil specialist CNOOC fell 3 percent to HK$6.09 as oil prices dropped overnight and stayed below $44 per barrel in Asian trade on a bearish euro zone outlook.
Asia's top oil and gas producer, PetroChina, shed 1.7 percent to fall to HK$5.17 while refiner Sinopec Corp was down 3.6 percent.
Other commodity stocks also pulled back, partly erasing recent gains, with Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) down 3.1 percent and coal miner China Coal Energy 3.2 percent lower at HK$4.53.
But gold miners bucked the downtrend in the broad market even as the gold price eased a touch on Friday after rising 2 percent overnight on its safe-haven appeal.
Zijin Mining was up 1.4 percent while Lingbao Gold gained 4.4 percent.DIARIES & DATA: IPO diary & data Asia earnings diary U.S. earnings diary European diary Taiwan diary Wall Street Week Ahead Eurostocks Week Ahead World forecasts