Modest gains yesterday and on Friday helped keep the Hong Kong stock market in the black up 1.5% since the start of the year, but did little to alter the highly cautious investor sentiment that has pushed the Hang Seng Index 11.8% lower since the beginning of May, market watchers say.
The enthusiasm for market newcomers is particularly low and yesterday morning China Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings was forced to cancel its initial public offering after failing to attract much demand. The company late last week extended the institutional bookbuilding by three days in an attempt to salvage the transaction, but it didn’t revise the terms and in the...