China stocks were mixed on Thursday as profit-taking on financial stocks weighed on domestic indices for the third day in a row, but Hong Kong continued to receive a lift from mobile technology stocks.
The CSI300 index fell 1.3 per cent to 3,782.72 points at the end of the morning session, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.0 per cent to 3,613.71 points.
Traders say shares in the CSI300 financial sub-index, which gained 14 per cent from November 3 to November 9, are under pressure now as investors take profits.
Stocks had last week returned their best performance since June, in part due to expectations of an upcoming connect scheme for trading between the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock markets that could boost the transaction volume for stocks and revenues for securities firms.
China CSI300 stock index futures for November fell 1.5 per cent to 3,730.4, -52.32 points below the current value of the underlying index.
HK shares
Hong Kong shares once again received a lift from mobile technology shares led by Tencent, the Chinese social media and internet technology giant, which posted third quarter earnings above expectations on Tuesday evening.
Tencent was up for the second day in a row, bringing the two-day gain to 2.3 per cent by Thursday at noon.
The Hang Seng index added 1.0 per cent to 22,568.97 points.
The Hong Kong China Enterprises Index gained 0.7 per cent to 10,314.13.
The index measuring price differences between dual-listed companies in Shanghai and Hong Kong stood at 138.40.
A value above 100 indicates Shanghai shares are pricing at a premium to shares in the same company trading in Hong Kong, and vice versa.
The northbound quota for the Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect, currently set at 13 billion yuan, saw net outflows of 0.46 billion yuan.
Total volume of A shares traded in Shanghai was 20.79 billion shares, while Shenzhen volume was 24.48 billion shares.
Total trading volume of companies included in the HSI index was 0.6 billion shares.