Hong Kong shares finished down on Tuesday, ignoring a rally on mainland exchanges that saw the Shanghai Composite Index break back above 3,000, considered a key psychological resistance level.
The Hang Seng index fell 1.6 per cent, to 22,670.50, while the China Enterprises Index lost 0.7 per cent, to 11,136.90 points.
The increasing disconnect between sentiment in Hong Kong and Shanghai is evident in the A-H share price index, which closed up at 119.69 on Tuesday, its highest level since November 2011.
A value above 100 indicates Shanghai shares are pricing at a premium to shares in the same company trading in Hong Kong.
Among the most actively traded stocks on Hong Kong’s main board were CCT Land, down 5.6 percent to HK$0.02, Unity Investment Holdings, down 37.0 per cent to HK$0.05, and Landing International, up 48.9 percent to HK$0.34.
Chinese investment flowing from Shanghai into Hong Kong through the mutual market access pilot programme took up 0.39 billion yuan of the 10.5 billion yuan daily quota.
Total trading volume of companies included in the HSI index was 2.2 billion shares.