Hong Kong shares bolt skyward as mainland rally streams through stock connect

The Hang Seng Index shot up 6.4% in the opening minutes of trading Thursday and ended the day up 2.7% as a buying frenzy on Shanghai’s exchange spilled over into Hong Kong through the stock connect that helped spark the mainland’s ongoing stock rally, The Wall Street Journal reported. The territory’s de facto central bank was forced to stop the local currency from strengthening past its trading band as mainland investors used up the full RMB10.5 billion (US$1.692 billion) quota allotted by the trading link, two weeks after Beijing permitted mutual funds to use it. Adding to investor confidence was an article in the state-run China Securities Journal headlined “Go! Buy Hong Kong Stocks!”