Hong Kong shares snap four-day losing streak; Evergrande soars

Hong Kong shares rose on Thursday, after four straight sessions of losses and tracking regional peers higher on a rebound in consumer and financials firms, even as investors harbour nagging doubts about the state of the global economic recovery. ** At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 499.26 points or 1.83% at 27,723.84, trimming its losses for the week to 1%.

Hong Kong shares rose on Thursday, after four straight sessions of losses and tracking regional peers higher on a rebound in consumer and financial firms, even as investors harbor nagging doubts about the state of the global economic recovery.

** At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 499.26 points or 1.83% at 27,723.84, trimming its losses for the week to 1%. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 1.79% to 10,006.57. ** The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking the IT sector rose 2.26%, the financial sector ended 1.64% higher and the property sector rose 1.84%. ** Energy shares rose 3.1% as oil prices clung onto most of the previous day's gains. ** Sentiment in the property sector was boosted after developer China Evergrande Group said it had solved legal disputes with China Guangfa Bank and that the two sides would deepen business cooperation, easing investor concerns that sparked a three-day sell-off. ** Evergrande was the top gainer among H-shares, rising 7.87%, followed by Kuaishou Technology, gaining 6.93% and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, up by 5.44%. ** Trading volume was relatively light, with about 1.63 billion Hang Seng index shares traded, roughly 81.2% of the market's 30-day moving average of 2 billion shares a day. ** China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.34% at 3,574.73 points, while the blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.15%. ** Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 1.25%, while Japan's Nikkei index closed up 0.58%. ** The yuan was quoted at 6.4671 per U.S. dollar at 08:08 GMT, 0.02% firmer than the previous close of 6.4685.