Hong Kong shares close slightly lower on caution ahead of U.S. jobs data

HONG KONG (AFX-ASIA) - Share prices were slightly lower in cautious trade as investors waited for the release tonight of U.S. jobs data for clues on the interest rate outlook for the short term, dealers said. They said high-tech and telecom stocks turned weaker in tandem with the falls on NASDAQ following the profit warnings from Yahoo! and Intel, while red-chips and H-shares continued to correct downward amid the volatility in China's B-share market. The Hang Seng index closed down 14.60 points at 14,194.35, off a high of 14,288.58 and a low of 14,148.73, on turnover of 5.26 bln hkd. The Hang Seng March contract last traded at 14,100 points. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index was down 9.97 points at 393.07, and the CAC index was down 26.56 points at 1,138.55. TraHK was unchanged at 14.30 hkd on volume of 3.46 mln units. The GEM index was down 4.42 points at 282.94 on turnover of 192.91 mln hkd. MTR Corp was down 0.10 at 13.85 hkd. Marty Chan, an analyst with Polaris securities, said today's market was characterised by a lacklustre turnover, with investors sidelined ahead of the release of the U.S. job report for February. "Financials fared better than the broader market ... but (the gains were) purely driven by rotational buying," he said. The financial sub-index was up 222.07 points at 21,739.95. HSBC was down 1.0 at 104.50, Hang Seng Bank rose 1.25 to 94.00, and Bank of East Asia closed up 0.25 at 19.20. Chan said high-tech and telecom stocks were out of favour, because of profit warnings from their U.S. counterparts, particularly Yahoo! and Intel. Legend lost 0.35 or 5.98 pct to 41.96 on volume of 25.14 mln shares, ASM Pacific fell 0.15 to 14.90, and Computer & Tech dropped 0.125 to 3.575. Among telecom stocks, China Mobile rose 0.20 to 37.60, Hutchison Whampoa lost 0.25 to 88.50, and China Unicom fell 0.25 to 10.85. Pacific Century CyberWorks fell 0.05 to 4.20 after the company said executive director George Chan has resigned. Property stocks fell into negative territory as investors continued to react negatively to the absence of support measures for the residential market in the budget speech, dealers said. Cheung Kong fell 0.75 to 92.00 after the company launched the first four units at its University Court development at an average price of 4,226 hkd per square foot and announced that it will provide a rebate of up to 1.5 pct of the property value for prospective buyers. Sun Hung Kai Properties fell 1.75 to 83.00, Henderson Land lost 0.30 to 45.80, and New World Development was down 0.05 at 13.40. Swire Pacific fell 2.50 to 51.00 following its weaker-than-expected 2000 results, hit by the higher-than-expected provision for its property trading portfolio. Swire recorded a net profit of 3.889 bln hkd in 2000, compared with 4.435 bln in the previous year. The company made a provision of 1.70 bln hkd for its property trading portfolio. For red-chips and H-shares, CNPC fell 0.02 to 0.54, COSCO International lost 0.03 to 0.87 and Shenyin Wanguo eased 0.05 to 0.77. China Eastern Airlines was down 0.05 at 1.11, China Southern was unchanged at 2.10, and Tsingtao Brewery dropped 0.01 to 1.99. On the GEM board, tom.com fell 0.10 to 2.175 and Sunevision lost 0.025 to 2.625. New listing iLink last traded at 1.41 hkd, compared with its IPO price of 1.28.

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