Hong Kong stocks up as sentiment buoyed by US tax reform

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's main Hang Seng index ended Monday firmer while China's H-shares index also closed higher, with sentiment in Asia boosted by expectations U.S. lawmakers will pass a long-awaited tax bill. 

At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 202.30 points, or 0.7 percent, at 29,050.41. 

The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 0.43 percent to 11,415.13.

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 0.9 percent while the IT sector rose 0.74 percent, the financial sector was 0.96 percent higher and property sector rose 0.81 percent. 

The top gainer on Hang Seng was Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd up 4.24 percent, while the biggest loser was Sino Land Co Ltd which was down 2.51 percent. 

China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.07 percent at 3,268.3296 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.12 percent.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.39 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed up 1.55 percent. 

The yuan was quoted at 6.6158 per U.S. dollar at 08:25 GMT, 0.11 percent weaker than the previous close of 6.608.

So far this year, the Hang Seng index is up 31.12 percent, while China's H-share index is up 21.0 percent. 

As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has declined 1.13 percent this month. 

The top gainers among H-shares were China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd up 2.41 percent, followed by Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co Ltd gaining 2.19 percent and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd up by 1.79 percent. 

The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were China Vanke Co Ltd which was down 1.74 percent, China Railway Group Ltd which fell 1.6 percent and China Telecom Corp Ltd down by 1.3 percent. 

About 1.69 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 84.3 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 2.00 billion shares a day. 

The volume traded in the previous trading session was 2.06 billion. 

At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 29.47 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares. - Reuters