China, Hong Kong stocks firm on hopes pandemic is nearing peak
09/04/2020 05:59
* SSEC 0.3%, CSI300 0.3%, HSI 0.7%
* HK->Shanghai Connect daily quota used 100%, Shanghai->HK
daily
quota used 0.5%
* FTSE China A50 +0.0%
SHANGHAI, April 9 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong stocks
firmed on Thursday, helped by hopes the coronavirus pandemic may
be approaching a peak.
** At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index .SSEC
was up 0.28% at 2,823.27 points.
** China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 was up 0.26%,
with its financial sector sub-index .CSI300FS climbing 0.38%,
the consumer staples sector .CSI000912 down 0.24%, the real
estate index .CSI000952 dropped 0.82% and the healthcare
sub-index .CSI300HC up 2.8%.
** Chinese H-shares listed in Hong Kong .HSCE rose 0.76%
to 9,755.64, while the Hang Seng Index .HSI was up 0.7% at
24,137.45.
** The smaller Shenzhen index .SZSC was up 0.61% and the
start-up board ChiNext Composite index .CNT was higher by
1.37%.
** Helping broader sentiment was New York Governor Andrew
Cuomo's statement that the state's efforts at social distancing
were working in getting the virus under control in one of the
biggest hot spots in the United States. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2BW0BB
** U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to reopen
the U.S. economy with a "big bang" but that the death toll from
the coronavirus first needs to be heading down. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2BW1OM
** Market sentiment improved somewhat after the U.S. massive
monetary and fiscal easing to help its economy, which could help
lift risk appetite for the A-share market, analysts at Eversight
Securities said in note.
** Long-term investors shall start to buy shares for now
given the reasonable valuations of China stocks, the brokerage
added.
** China's new bank loans are expected to have rebounded in
March from a sharp drop the previous month, a Reuters poll
showed, as policymakers continue to urge lenders to help
cash-strapped companies hit hard by the coronavirus crisis.
urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2BW1N7
** China released new measures on Wednesday to try and
prevent asymptomatic "silent carriers" of coronavirus from
causing a second wave of infections, as the country reported
another modest rise in new confirmed cases. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2BX01I
** Mainland China reported 63 new confirmed cases on
Wednesday, up from 62 a day earlier, the National Health
Commission said. Of those, 61 were travellers arriving from
overseas, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in China
to 81,865.
** Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index
.MIAPJ0000PUS was firmer by 1.06% while Japan's Nikkei index
.N225 was down 0.49%.
** The yuan CNY=CFXS was quoted at 7.0668 per U.S. dollar,
0.02% weaker than the previous close of 7.0651.
** As of 0416 GMT, China's A-shares were trading at a
premium of 26.14% over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.
(Reporting by Luoyan Liu and Andrew Galbraith, Editing by
Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
((luoyan.liu@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
luoyan.liu.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))