Regional weakness drags Hong Kong shares to end near one-year low

Stocks in Hong Kong fell on Wednesday along with their regional counterparts, ending near one-year lows on bearish Chinese investor sentiment and broader concerns about emerging markets sparked by Turkey's financial crisis.

At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was down 429.34 points, or 1.55 percent, at 27,323.59. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index fell 1.95 percent to 10,535.14.

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 1.9 percent while the IT sector dipped 3.75 percent, the financial sector was 1.48 percent lower and property sector dipped 1.54 percent.

The top gainer on Hang Seng was WH Group Ltd up 8.24 percent, while the biggest loser was Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd which was down 5.25 percent. ** China's main Shanghai Composite index closed down 2.06 percent at 2,780.9646 while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended down 2.38 percent.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 0.88 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 0.68 percent.

The yuan ended its onshore trading session at 6.9049 per dollar, the weakest such close since May 9, 2017.

The yuan weakened to a 15-month low on Wednesday and flirted with a key support level not seen since 2008 as the dollar extended gains and a raft of data pointed to further slowing in China's economy.

As of the previous trading session, the Hang Seng index was down 7.24 percent this year, while China's H-share index was down 8.2 percent. As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has declined 2.9 percent this month.

The top gainers among H-shares were China Mobile Ltd up 0.56 percent, followed by China Telecom Corp Ltd gaining 0.28 percent.

The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were China Gas Holdings Ltd which was down 6.70 percent, Byd Co Ltd which fell 5.5 percent and Great Wall Motor Co Ltd down by 5.3 percent.

About 1.97 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 115.3 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 1.71 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 1.54 billion.

At the close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 16.52 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares. ** The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 10.64 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 3.4 percent.

So far this week, the market capitalization of the Hang Seng index has fallen by 2.53 percent to HK$17.96 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 higher by 1.55 percent on the day at 5,171.96.

(Reporting by Andrew Galbraith; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)