By Laura He, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong stocks tumbled on Wednesday
amid declines on Wall Street overnight and worries about Chinese
economy triggered by Premier Li's comments.
The Hang Seng Index ended 1.9% lower, as trading resumed after
the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Tuesday that China's M2, a broad
measure of money supply, expanded 12.8% in August, the slowest pace
in five months, as he stressed Beijing's commitment to shift away
from printing money to stimulate growth. He disclosed the figure
while speaking at the World Economic Forum in the northern Chinese
city of Tianjin, ahead of the official data release scheduled next
week.
Mainland banks suffered significant losses across the board,
with China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd. falling 2.8%, ICBC and China
Construction Bank Corp. declining 2.4%, China Citic Bank
Corporation Ltd. losing 2.2%, Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. down
2.2%, and Bank of China Ltd. off 2.1%.
Online giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., a top rival of e-commerce
giant Alibaba Group, skidded 3.3%, after Alibaba unveiled a
seemingly conservative price range for its upcoming U.S. IPO and
kicked off meetings with prospective investors in New York on
Monday.
Another index heavyweight China Mobile Ltd., the country's
largest wireless carrier, dropped 2.6%, after Apple Inc. (AAPL)
revealed that mainland China is among the first batch of countries
to sell iPhone 6. Other Chinese mobile operators suffered even
more, as China Telecom Corp. Ltd. gave up 3.5%, and China Unicom
(Hong Kong) Ltd. pulled back 3.3%.
In other Asian markets, Japanese stocks bucked the weaker
regional trend and closed higher, as the Nikkei Average rose 0.3%,
with the yen (USDJPY) weakening against the dollar. The dollar
bought Yen106.751 yen, up from Yen106.171 the previous day. The
broader Topix index advanced 0.6%.
Elsewhere, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ended down 0.6%, and the
Australian dollar (AUDUSD) fell to 91.28 U.S. cents from 92.11
cents a day earlier.
On the Chinese mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index finished
0.4% lower.
Markets in South Korea were closed Wednesday for a public
holiday.
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