Hong Kong stocks slip on Apple trouble, flat A-shares

Want Want China Holdings

03/01/2019 08:46

* HSI -0.3 pct, HSCE flat; IT hardware makers lead losses
    * Apple Inc suppliers decline after company cuts forecast
    * Chinese stocks lacklustre as economic concerns persist

    HONG KONG, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Hong Kong stocks eased on
Thursday after a rare revenue warning from Apple Inc  AAPL.O 
spooked technology and hardware shares, and as investors found
little support from the performance of Chinese equities.
** The Hang Seng index  .HSI  edged down 0.3 percent to
25,064.36, while the Hang Seng China Enterprises index  .HSCE 
closed flat.
** The struggling market mostly followed trading in mainland
China, where the Shanghai Composite index  .SSEC  ended flat but
the blue-chip CSI300 index  .CSI300  and most of its sub-indexes
fell.
** The sub-index tracking energy shares  .HSCIE  rose 1.2
percent, the financial sector  .HSNF  ended 0.5 percent lower,
while property stocks  .HSNP  rose 0.91 percent.
** Shares of I.T. hardware makers  .HSITHI  led the losses with
a 1.6 percent drop. Information Technology stocks  .HSCIIT  also
slid 0.9 percent. 
** Apple Inc made a rare cut to its quarterly sales forecast on
Wednesday, and, for the first time since the iPhone was launched
in 2007, issued a warning on its revenue guidance ahead of
releasing quarterly results.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z236Y
** Shares of Apple suppliers across the Mainland China and
Taiwan markets also came under pressure.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z300L
** While the Apple forecast cut was "mostly hurting stocks
involved with the mobile phone business, this was bad for
sentiments across the market," said Linus Yip, chief strategist
at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong.
** Worries over the Chinese economy continued to hang over the
local market, after China reported its first factory activity
contraction in over two years in December this week.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z00VY
** The top gainer on the Hang Seng was Want Want China Holdings
Ltd  0151.HK , up 5.5 percent, while the biggest loser was Geely
Automobile Holdings Ltd  0175.HK , which fell 8.2 percent. Geely
hit a 19-month low after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock and
trimmed the target price.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z31JW
** Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index
 .MIAPJ0000PUS  was weaker by 0.5 percent, while Japan's Nikkei
index  .N225  closed down 0.3 percent.
** The yuan  CNY=CFXS  was quoted at 6.8720 per U.S. dollar at
08:28 GMT, 0.15 percent weaker than the previous close of
6.8620.
** The top gainers among H-shares were PetroChina Co Ltd
 0857.HK , up 2.8 percent, China Resources Land Ltd  1109.HK ,
up 2.7 percent, and CITIC Ltd  0267.HK , up by 2.6 percent.
** The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were CSPC
Pharmaceutical Group Ltd  1093.HK , which was down 5.8 percent,
Byd Co Ltd  1211.HK , which fell 3.6 percent, and Guangzhou
Automobile Group Co Ltd  2238.HK , down 3.4 percent.
** At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 19.18
percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.  .HSCAHPI 
** The short and one-factor leveraged Hang Seng index  .HSISI ,
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 higher by 0.27 percent on the day at 5,524.01
points.

 (Reporting by Noah Sin; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
 ((noah.sin@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
noah.sin.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))