Hong Kong jumps 2% Has Meituan shares surge; Singapore’s travel-related stocks soar

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed on Monday as stocks in Hong Kong led gains regionally.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed 1.96% higher at 25,325.09

Shares of Meituan in Hong Kong surged 8.36%. China’s market regulator on Friday said it had fined the company about 3.4 billion Chinese yuan ($527.71 million) after finding it guilty of monopolistic practices. Still, that was far smaller than the 18.23 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) fine that Alibaba had been slapped with back in April

Other Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong also saw sizable gains, with Tencent rising 2.95% while Alibaba surged 7.91%. The Hang Seng Tech index jumped 3.17% to 6,403.69

The Shanghai composite on mainland China closed little changed at 3,591.71 while the Shenzhen component dipped 0.323% on the day to 14,367.60

Travel-related stocks in Singapore surged, with Singapore Airlines soaring more than 7% while SATS — which provides ground-handling and in-flight catering services — gained about 4% on Monday. The gains came after Singapore authorities announced over the weekend that more “vaccinated travel lanes” are set to open with more countries. The broader Straits Times index in Singapore was little changed

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed 1.6% higher at 28,498.20 while the Topix index jumped 1.77% to finish the trading day at 1,996.58

Elsewhere, shares in Australia lagged, with the S&P/ASX 200 down 0.28% to close at 7,299.80

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.69%

Markets in South Korea are closed on Monday for a holiday

Debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group faced more bond coupon payments on Monday, with the firm already missing two interest payment deadlines last month

Trading in its shares has been suspended along with those of Evergrande Property Services since Oct. 4, pending a deal that has yet to be announced