HK stocks dip while Hutchison Whampoa reaches two-year high

　　Hong Kong stocks dipped on Wednesday as mainland lenders slipped, while Hutchison Whampoa, a major container terminal operator in Hong Kong, surged 6 percent, almost reaching its two-year high.

　　The benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 179.06 points, or 0.83 percent, to close at 21,294.54 points, after trading between a day high of 21,643.24 points and a day low of 21,239.17 points.

　　Turnover totaled 61.36 billion HK dollars (7.9 billion US dollars), compared with Tuesday's 56.74 billion HK dollars.

　　The H-Share Index dropped 206.05 points, or 1.73 percent, to end at 11,737.63 points.

　　Banking giant HSBC edged down 0.43 percent to close at 81.5 HK dollars, while China Mobile, China's dominant mobile carrier, jumped 0.3 percent, to end at 82.1 HK dollars.

　　Major mainland lenders moved down before the coming of their half-year reports. CCB, which accounts for the third largest weighting of the HSI, fell 2.68 percent to close at 6.54 HK dollars.

　　ICBC, China's largest bank by market value, dropped 2.54 percent to close at 5.75 HK dollars, after it announced to privatize and delist its Hong Kong unit ICBC Asia on Tuesday.

　　BOC, one of the "big four", edged down 2.16 percent to 4.07 HK dollars.

　　Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's flagship company, which just reported a 12 percent year-on-year net profit up for the first half this year, performed well, up 3.5 HK dollars to end at 61.85 HK dollars.

　　Fok Kin-ning, the managing director of Hutchison Whampoa, bought one million shares of the company on Aug. 6.

　　Tencent, China's major online gaming company, dropped 4.06 percent to close at 148.7 HK dollars.

　　China Life, one of the world's largest life insurers by market value, dipped 0.59 percent to end at 33.85 HK dollars.

　　Major oil producers on Chinese mainland also declined, with PetroChina, the country's largest oil and gas producer and Sinopec, China's top refiner, down 1.02 percent and 0.65 percent respectively. (One U.S. dollar is equivalent to 7.766 HK dollars)