Thursday, November 01, 2007

The Waiting Game

The HK market opened fairly strong but eventually fell back. The hope of a 50 basis point cut was over optimistic. At the end of the trading day the HSI rose 140 to 31,492.

Will the HKAB follow through on rate the cut? It seems almost certain that they will. Yesterday, the HKMA injected HK$7.8 billion to mop up excess US$ as too much liquidity was flowing in to HK. With the US$ weakening, and the RMB expected to increase at the rate of at least 2% p.a. we are seeing a replay of using the HK stock market as a proxy for the currency (remember the hedge funds attack on the HK$ in 1998?) except this time it is the reverse. Since foreign investors cannot buy RMB or A-shares on the Mainland, they are opting to buy H-shares (Chinese companies listed in HK)as a proxy for the RMB since their assets and income streams are in RMB.



Market Indicies
Australia All Ordinaries 6853.60 + 1.10%
Bombay Sensex* 19724.35 - 0.57%
Hong Kong Hang Seng 31492.88 + 0.45%
Japan Nikkei 16870.40 + 0.79%
Shanghai Composite 5914.28 - 0.68%
Singapore STI 3803.56 - 0.06%
South Korea Composite 2063.14 - 0.08%
Taiwan Weighted 9598.23 - 1.17%

*Late trading

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