HK Shares Up As Telecom Plays Shine

The Hang Seng Index extended its winning streak to five days on Tuesday thanks largely to tech and telecom plays.

The index started the day in negative territory after big losses on Wall Street overnight before changing course to close up 177 points, or 0.6 percent, at 27,649, with turnover reaching HK$215 billion.

China Mobile climbed 5.1 percent, China Telecom gained 3.3 percent and China Unicom surged 8.5 percent after the New York Stock Exchange said it no longer plans to delist the three mainland telecom giants.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing continued its rally on reports that Nasdaq-listed mainland video-sharing website Bilibili could file to list here by early next week. HKEx hit a new high of HK$460 before ending the day up 3.4 percent at HK$457.

Tech plays also finished higher. Tencent rallied almost 2 percent, Xiaomi climbed to a fresh record high of HK$35.90 before closing up 0.1 percent and Meituan rose more than 1 percent.

Mobile equipment maker Sunny Optical logged a new peak and wrapped up the day 2.3 percent higher.

Across the border, the CSI300 climbed 1.9 percent to its highest level since 2015, while the Shanghai Composite index also touched a five-year high before paring some of the gains to close up 0.7 percent. The Shenzhen Composite index added 1.5 percent.

Shares in Taiwan put on two-thirds of a percent, reaching a new high.

Markets elsewhere in the region were mixed ahead of the US Senate runoffs in the state of Georgia.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6 percent. But the Nikkei in Japan gave up 0.4 percent. Singapore lost about 0.2 percent. Australia was flat.