Hong Kong stocks hit record closing high as Tencent, HKEx jump

Jan 16 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index rose to a record closing high on Tuesday, led by index heavyweight Tencent Holdings and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx). ** Tencent jumped over 2 percent while HKEx surged nearly 6 percent ** At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 565.88 points or 1.81 percent at 31,904.75. The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 2.54 percent to 12,787.28. **The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares rose 1.1 percent while the IT sector rose 2.04 percent, the financial sector was 2.39 percent higher and property sector rose 1.11 percent. ** The top gainer on Hang Seng was Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd up 5.43 percent, while the biggest loser was AAC Technologies Holdings Inc which was down 3.66 percent. ** China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.79 percent at 3,437.4848 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.81 percent. ** Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.54 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed up 1.00 percent. ** The yuan was quoted at 6.4348 per U.S. dollar at 08:14 GMT, 0.02 percent firmer than the previous close of 6.4363. ** So far this year, the Hang Seng index is up 4.75 percent, while China's H-share index is up 6.5 percent. As of the previous close, the Hang Seng has risen 4.75 percent this month. ** The top gainers among H-shares were China Vanke Co Ltd up 8.93 percent, followed by CITIC Securities Co Ltd gaining 4.76 percent and China Galaxy Securities Co Ltd up by 4 percent. ** The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were Air China Ltd which was down 1.90 percent, SINOPHARM GROUP CO LTD which fell 0.6 percent and PetroChina Co Ltd down by 0.3 percent. ** About 3.19 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 173.9 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 1.84 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 2.75 billion. ** At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 28.17 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares. ** The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 14.29 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 2.8 percent. ** So far this week, the market capitalisation of the Hang Seng index has fallen by 0.42 percent to HK$20.53 trillion. (Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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