Who says the market has to be "rational"?

On the back of a 190 point rise in the Dow on Monday, the HK market finished up over 1,057 at 28,199 accompanied by record turnover of HK$163 billion. Turnover this high can only be attributed to institutional buyers who are afraid of being left behind in the rush to "buy China".

As today is the first trading day of the last quarter, the tsunami of foreign institutional funds hitting our shores would guarantee that the year will end on a high note.

The following statistics are made available by the HKEx:
- The Hang Seng Index (HSI) closed at a record high of 28199.75 today, up 1057.28 points, the fourth largest point rise in history. It was the largest point rise since 20 August 2007 when the index was up 1208.50 points. The HSI's 3.90 per cent rise today was its largest in per cent terms since 19 September 2007 when the index was up 3.98 per cent.
- The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (H-shares index) closed at a record high of 17973.87 today, up 955.93 points, or 5.62 per cent.
- Today's securities market turnover value was $163,942 million, the largest ever.
- Today's turnover value for H-share and red-chip companies was $74,737 million and $18,778 million respectively.
- Today's derivative warrants turnover was $27,987 million, the largest ever.
- A record high total of 1,019,309 trades were concluded today.
- Today's closing market capitalisation was a new high of $20,757.1 billion. The previous trading day's ( 28 September 2007 ) closing market capitalisation was $20,054.9 billion.

Top 10 daily turnover values in history (Up to 2 October 2007)
Daily turnover value in HK$
Main Board GEM Market total
Rank ($) ($) ($) Date
1 163,132,418,781 810,057,000^ 163,942,475,781 2/10/2007
2 148,575,515,387 634,708,800 149,210,224,187 28/9/2007
3 147,053,974,999 831,473,240 147,885,448,239 27/9/2007
4 140,057,412,983 814,970,399 140,872,383,382 24/9/2007
5 138,709,411,014 657,991,096 139,367,402,110 19/9/2007
6 132,283,181,902 710,132,583 132,993,314,485 21/9/2007
7 129,178,392,000 605,960,271 129,784,352,271 25/9/2007
8 126,346,932,691 696,609,067 127,043,541,758 27/8/2007
9 122,942,024,498 639,900,384 123,581,924,882 28/8/2007
10 121,055,884,537 1,314,151,868 122,370,036,405 1/8/2007
^ Figures rounded

Top 10 point rise in history
Up to 2 October 2007
Rank Point rise Date
1 1705.41 29/10/1997
2 1326.24 2/2/1998
3 1208.50 20/8/2007
4 1057.28 2/10/2007
5 978.66 3/9/1997
6 977.79 19/9/2007
7 816.07 25/9/2000
8 806.59 16/10/1998
9 723.99 17/3/2000
10 722.96 31/5/2000

Elsewhere in the region, stocks gained across Asia, with several major indices touching record levels as investors shrugged off continued credit-crunch woes.

Market Indices
Australia All Ordinaries 6667.60 + 1.33%
Bombay Sensex* 17328.62 + 0.22%
Hong Kong Hang Seng 28199.75 + 3.90%
Japan Nikkei 17046.78 + 1.19%
Singapore STI 3790.54 + 0.94%
South Korea Composite 2014.09 + 2.62%
Taiwan Weighted 9623.25 + 1.42%

*Intraday trading