Hong Kong shares rebound sharply ahead of Lunar New Year holiday

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.98 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 0.43 percent.

HONG KONG: Hong Kong stocks rebounded sharply on Wednesday, with the benchmark Hang Seng Index posting its biggest one-day percentage rise since May 2016.

The market will close on Thursday afternoon for the Lunar New Year holiday, and will resume trading on Feb. 20. 

At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 676.07 points or 2.27 percent at 30,515.60. 

The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 2.14 percent to 12,260.99. 

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 1.4 percent while the IT sector rose 2.3 percent, the financial sector was 2.99 percent higher and property sector rose 2 percent. 

The top gainer on Hang Seng was Hang Seng Bank Ltd up 7.71 percent, while the biggest loser was WH Group Ltd which was down 0.33 percent.

 China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.46 percent at 3,199.4757 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.8 percent. 

Mainland markets are closed from Feb. 15-21 for the holiday. 

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.98 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 0.43 percent.

 The yuan was quoted at 6.3465 per U.S. dollar at 08:10 GMT, 0.1 percent weaker than the previous close of 6.34. 

As of the previous trading session, the Hang Seng index was down 0.27 percent this year, while China's H-share index was up 2.5 percent. 

As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has declined 9.27 percent this month. 

The top gainers among H-shares were China Construction Bank Corp up 5.16 percent, followed by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd gaining 4.43 percent and Postal Savings Bank of China Co Ltd up by 3.74 percent. 

The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co Ltd which was down 2.32 percent, Sinopharm Group Co Ltd which fell 0.4 percent and CRRC Corp Ltd down by 0.0 percent.

About 2.48 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 75.8 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 3.28 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 2.79 billion. 

At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 28.10 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.

 The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 13.56 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 2.9 percent. - Reuters