HK Shares Post Small Losses In Shortened Day

Local shares gave up early gains by the close on Monday after trading was cut short by heavy downpours, while the rest of the region was lacklustre as investors kept a watchful eyes on a spike in coronavirus cases over the weekend.

The Hong Kong market opened at 1:30pm, with the Hang Seng Index up 78 points. But the benchmark soon headed south and finished down 19 points, or just under 0.1 percent, at 29,268, on turnover of HK$101.6 billion.

Sportswear firms were the top performers. Anta Sports surged to a new record and ended the day up 5.4 percent, after Goldman Sachs raised its target price on the stock.

Sportswear and knitwear manufacturer Shenzhou International rallied 3.6 percent.

Li Ning soared 13.6 percent after the company issued an alert forecasting its interim profit to more than double.

Tech shares were mixed. Alibaba rallied 2.9 percent. But Xiaomi and Meituan each slipped 0.4 percent. Tencent gave up 0.5 percent.

The biggest blue-chip loser was Geely Auto, which sank 2.1 percent after the carmaker dropped its plan to list new shares on Shanghai's Nasdaq-like STAR Market.

Across the border, the Shanghai Composite index was flat, while the blue-chip CSI300 index edged up 0.2 percent. The Shenzhen Composite advanced 0.9 percent.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan, South Korea and Australia were little changed. Taiwan added 0.5 percent. Singapore was about 0.2 percent firmer.