HK shares extend rally in heavy trading

Local stocks and mainland markets rose on Wednesday – in line with the surge on Wall Street overnight – ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration as US president.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index continued its march towards the 30,000 mark, hitting 29,993 at one point.

It later pared the gains to close at 29,962, up 320 points or more than 1 percent.

For the second straight day, turnover breached HK$300 billion.

Market turnover was almost HK$300.3 billion on Wednesday, the second highest ever after reaching HK$301 billion the day before.

Food delivery firm Meituan Dianping was the top gainer on the index, jumping over 9 percent.

Tech giant Alibaba surged more than 8 percent after its founder Jack Ma reappeared in the public, months after he criticised the mainland regulatory system in a speech.

Markets across the border also ended higher, as the People’s Bank of China kept liquidity abundant to support economic recovery from the pandemic.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained around half a percent, while the blue-chip CSI300 index added around 0.7 percent.

Markets in the rest of the region were mixed.

Tokyo retreated 0.4 percent on profit-taking, with analysts pointing out that the call by US Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen for big spending in fiscal relief hasn’t been able to surprise investors there.

Taiwan also reported losses, but South Korea and Australia gained.