Hong Kong stocks close 4.77% lower

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

HONG KONG, Nov. 11 (Chinese media) -- Hong Kong stocks plunged 703.73 points, or 4.77 percent, to close at 14,040.90 on Tuesday, on the fall of regional stock markets triggered by profit-taking and poor corporate data from the U.S..

Turnover went down to 54.39 billion HK dollars (7.03 billion U.S. dollars) from Monday's 60.71 billion HK dollars (7.84 billionU.S. dollars).

Property sector was the biggest loser, with the Hang Seng Property Sub-index plunged 7.08 percent on profit-taking after rising 6.1 percent over the past two sessions.

Analysts said that the near-term outlook for Hong Kong residential sector is weak. "The 25 basis-point cut in prime- lending rates by major banks in Hong Kong did not help much in boosting purchasers' sentiment," says Morgan Stanley.

Cheung Kong was down 9.25 percent, Henderson Land down 7.84 percent, SHK PPT down 4.93 percent, New World down 6.925 percent, Sino Land down 9.47 percent.

Bank stocks also moved lower. Heavyweight HSBC Holdings slid 4.7 percent to 88 HK dollars after the lender said its U.S. consumer finance unit, HSBC Finance Corp., incurred impairment charges of 4.2 billion U.S. dollars.

Hang Seng Bank was down 4.85 percent, BOC HK down 8.46 percent, Bank of East Asia down 5.88 percent and StanChart down 6.72 percent after acquiring Brazil business from Lehman Brothers.

As for the infrastructure, building material and steel stocks benefited from the central government's 4 trillion RMB economy stimulus measure, some tightened their gains and several even retreated. Sinoma was up 2.35 percent, but CNBM down 0.17 percent after a 19-percent surge.

The news that Circuit City, the second largest electronic product retailer in the U.S., applied for bankruptcy protection triggered concerns over a weakening in the U.S. retail market. Export stock Li Fung was down 12.47 percent, Esprit Holdings down 4.37 percent, but Yue Yuen was up 0.41 percent on October net operating income of 441 million U.S. dollars.

Analysts said that the stock market will continue to fluctuate in coming days as the boost from Beijing's economic stimulus package will be outweighed by concerns over the economy of the U.S. and the Chinese mainland. (One U.S. dollar = 7.742 HK dollars)