Hong Kong Stocks Flat, Asian Markets Mixed At Noon

Hong Kong stocks headed into the break on Tuesday barely moved as investors await the latest developments in the China-US trade talks, while Beijing unveiled huge tax cuts as it said it expects economic growth to slow this year.

The Hang Seng Index inched down just over eight points to 28,950 by the break.

On the mainland, the Shanghai stock index edged up 0.1 percent, to 3,031 while the Shenzhen market rose 0.8 percent, to 1,611.

Tokyo headed into the break 0.6 percent lower. Sydney eased 0.5 percent, Singapore was 0.4 percent off and Seoul gave up 0.7 percent with Taipei, Jakarta and Wellington also lower.

There was little major response early on from news that China had lowered its growth target for this year to 6.0-6.5 percent, while announcing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tax cuts for firms to stimulate the economy.

Tai Hui, Asia-Pacific chief market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, said the latest target indicated the leadership had learned from the past.

It "reflects top officials' maturity in accepting that China needs to stabilise growth in a sustainable manner, instead of a rush of liquidity to the economy, as we saw in previous downturns", he said.

"They need to strike a balance between boosting economic activity and not restart another debt-fuelled boom. It would be unrealistic to expect 2019 to be stronger than 2018 considering global headwinds and some structural challenges in the Chinese economy." (AFP)

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