SHANGHAI: Hong Kong stocks rose the most in two weeks on Friday, aided by a sharp rebound in Tencent Holdings, and better-than-expected China November trade data.
At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 336.66 points or 1.19 per cent at 28,639.85. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 1.25 per cent to 11,289.57.
The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 0 per cent while the IT sector rose 3.9 per cent, the financial sector was 1.04 per cent higher and property sector rose 1 per cent.
The top gainer on Hang Seng was Country Garden Holdings Company Ltd up 5.7 per cent, while the biggest loser was MTR Corp Ltd which was down 1.30 per cent.
China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.55 per cent at 3,290.1683 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.82 per cent.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.85 per cent while Japan's Nikkei index closed up 1.39 per cent.
The yuan was quoted at 6.6176 per US dollar at 08:18 GMT, 0.05 per cent weaker than the previous close of 6.614.
So far this year, the Hang Seng index is up 28.65 per cent, while China's H-share index is up 18.7 per cent.
The top gainers among H-shares were New China Life Insurance Co Ltd up 5.23 per cent, followed by Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd gaining 4.88 per cent and Anhui Conch Cement Co Ltd up by 3.7 per cent.
The three biggest H-shares per centage decliners were Dongfeng Motor Group Co Ltd which was down 0.96 per cent, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp which fell 0.6 per cent and Huaneng Power International Inc down by 0.4 per cent.
About 1.80 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 89.4 per cent of the market's 30-day moving average of 2.02 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 1.84 billion.
At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 32.47 per cent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.
The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 12.91 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 3.1 per cent.
So far this week, the market capitalisation of the Hang Seng index has fallen by 0.85 per cent to HK$18.53 trillion.
The short and one-factor leveraged Hang Seng index, which is designed to replicate the payoff of a short or leveraged portfolio and is linked to the movements of the Hang Seng Index, was lower by 1.19 per cent on the day at 5,157.74 points.
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