Hong Kong-listed internet stocks soared to record highs on Tuesday after China agreed to grant foreign investors access to its internet industry as part
of a deal to gain entry to the World Trade Organization, but the real action was in New York. China.com, a the Hong Kong-based, Chinese-language portal which is listed only on Nasdaq, rose 74.46% to $101.19 as US investors bid the stock up on renewed optimism that China’s WTO deal would create new opportunities for the portal. China.com operates three bilingual web sites, china.com, hongkong.com, and taiwan.com. Its shareholders include America Online and the official Xinhua news agency.
In Hong Kong the biggest mover with a 24% gain was Founder (Hong Kong) Ltd, a subsidiary of Beijing Founder Electronics which is working with Yahoo! Inc on Yahoo! China, a Chinese-language search engine and web guide. Software publisher Founder has been going through difficult times of late and recently reported a loss for the first half of the financial year.
Other Net stocks that rallied included Great Wall Technology, a China-based IT company, which rose 17% and Pacific Century Cyberworks, the dayÆs most traded stock, which closed 4% up. Buying of internet and telecoms stocks pushed the Hang Seng Index to its highest levels for more than two years.
However there were also some losers, with Legend Holdings, the listed arm of China’s top computer maker, plummeting 14.4% on the perception the company will be hit hard in future price wars with multinational computer firms.
