Hong Kong shares open higher on Wall St gains, China Mobile; Bocomm down

Hong Kong shares open higher on Wall St gains, China Mobile; Bocomm down

	Published : Wed, 24 Oct 2007 03:05 By : Agencies Print this Story

HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Share prices opened higher following an extended rebound on Wall Street and continued interest in China Mobile and several mainland banks after sharp gains yesterday.

Dealers said a surge in China Mobile's American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) overnight in New York and target price upgrades by several brokers helped sustain interest in the mainland's dominant mobile phone operator.

China Mobile's ADRs gained 5.4 pct overnight, extending gains after the company announced on Monday a 30 pct rise in nine months to September net profit.

Interest in mainland banks was also strong on expectations of strong results from the sector

after China Merchants Bank reported 128 pct growth in January-September earnings.

However, Bank of Communications (Bocomm) came under profit-taking pressure after surging over 19 pct yesterday on hopes of strong third-quarter earnings and speculation that HSBC will raise its stake in the mainland lender.

A spokeswoman for HSBC told XFN-Asia that the bank is still reviewing its options for raising its stake in Bocomm. HSBC used to hold 19.9 pct interest in BoComm, but this was diluted to 18.6 pct when the latter issued A-shares in Shanghai in May this year.

PetroChina was also in focus ahead of its sale of 4 bln A-shares for a planned Shanghai listing on November 5. The oil giant's ADRs gained 3.1 pct overnight.

The Hang Seng index opened up 433.52 points or 1.48 pct at 29,810.38.

China Mobile was up 2.60 hkd or 1.74 pct at 152.30.

China banks were mostly higher, with ICBC up 0.22 hkd or 3.19 pct at 6.90, Bank of China up 0.04 hkd or 0.87 pct at 4.63 and China Merchants Bank up 0.85 hkd or 2.31 pct at 39.85.

However, Bocomm was down 0.18 hkd or 1.37 pct at 12.98 on profit-taking.

jun.concepcion@xfn.com

jc/rc

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