Hong Kong - Hong Kong stocks rose, after swinging between gains and losses for most of the day, as investors weighed China economic data.
China Mobile dropped after profit slowed a fifth quarter.
The Hang Seng Index closed 0.1 percent higher at 23,088.58 in Hong Kong after fluctuating between a 0.5 percent decline and a 0.7 percent advance.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, also known as the H-share gauge, declined 0.2 percent.
Pro-democracy student leaders and city officials will have talks tonight seeking to end more than three weeks of protests.
China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, a report showed today.
While the data beat projections for 7.2 percent growth, it was still the slowest pace in more than five years.
Industrial production rose 8 percent in September, compared with the 7.5 percent median estimate of analysts and 6.9 percent the month before.
Growth in retail sales slowed to 11.6 percent in September from an 11.9 percent gain the previous month.
“China’s data shows growth remains lacklustre in the second half even though the government added stimulus and injected liquidity in the market,” said Benjamin Tam, a Hong Kong-based portfolio manager at IG Investment Ltd.
“There won’t be big stimulus but there could be mini stimulus in the coming months. The focus is on the fourth plenum to see whether there could be significant changes in the reform policy.”
Slowing Growth
China’s leaders have relaxed home-purchase controls and the central bank has pumped liquidity to lenders as they seek to limit a property-induced slowdown.
The government has eschewed across-the-board interest rate cuts.
Top Communist Party officials meet in Beijing this week for their fourth plenum.
The nation will set an economic growth target of about 7 percent for 2015, the weakest expansion in a generation, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg.
Uncertainty about growth in China and Europe as well as the timing for US interest-rate hikes helped drag Hong Kong’s benchmark equity gauge down 8.9 percent from this year’s high through yesterday.
The Hang Seng Index traded at 10.6 times estimated earnings at yesterday’s close, compared with 15.8 for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Student leaders in Hong Kong will meet with government negotiators led by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam for a two-hour televised talk at 6pm Students are demanding China reverse its decision that candidates for the city’s leadership election in 2017 must be vetted by a committee.
The rule triggered the protests, which swelled to as many as 200,000 people at their peak, according to organisers.
China Mobile lost 1.8 percent to HK$91.20.
The world’s largest carrier by users posted a 12 percent drop in net income to 24.9 billion yuan (R45 billion) in the third quarter as it spent more to encourage subscribers to switch to high-speed data services. - Bloomberg News