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Technology Stocks : PCW - Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (996)	4/5/2001 9:25:20 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2248

Hong Kong Stocks Plunge on Telecom Sell-Off Reuters Reuters Thursday, April 5, 2001 HONG KONG Hong Kong stocks plunged Wednesday as profit warnings from Wall Street pounded local telecommunications stocks. The Hang Seng index ended down 520.51 points, or 4.14 percent, at 12,063.71, its lowest level since May 1999. The decline followed a sell-off on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq composite index fell more than 6 percent Tuesday. Hong Kong's dominant telecommunications company, Pacific Century CyberWorks, and the two biggest mobile network carriers in China, China Mobile and China Unicom, dragged the telecommunications sector lower. Big investors said they were moving into stocks that were perceived as safer in times of economic downturn. "We are positioning ourselves for a defensive portfolio, and we are overweighting on the utilities sector because their earnings are reliable," said Violet Chong, senior portfolio manager at Scandia Asset Management. "We still have some telecom stocks, but in the medium term, we won't be returning in a big way to the sector. We won't take on a more bullish portfolio until later, but I can't say when." Shares of Pacific Century, the once high-flying company controlled by Richard Li, were down for the fifth trading day in a row after the company announced a bigger-than-expected loss for 2000. Its shares fell 12.5 cents to 2.60 Hong Kong dollars (33 U.S. cents). Analysts said uncertainties over the company's future growth potential had left many investors looking to sell the stock. Shares of Chinese telecommunications companies whose stocks are traded in Hong Kong fell, too. China Unicom fell 70 cents to 7.85 dollars after Goldman Sachs cut its price target for the company's shares to 12.15 dollars. China Mobile fell 3.20 dollars to 29.70 dollars. Elsewhere in Asia, stocks were mixed. In Tokyo, shares were up almost 1 percent, but in Kuala Lumpur, the main index closed down more than 6 percent. iht.com