Hong Kong stocks gain 36%, Shanghai rises 6.6% in 2017

Hong Kong stocks closed higher for their fifth consecutive session on Friday, bringing the Hang Seng's gains this year to 36 percent, the biggest annual percentage rise since 2009.

The market's stellar performance this year was fueled by a global economic recovery, ample liquidity in the global financial system, and money inflows from mainland China.

At close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 55.44 points or 0.19 percent at 29,919.15.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises index rose 0.22 percent to 11,709.3.

The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 0.3 percent while the IT sector dipped 0.41 percent, the financial sector was 0.4 percent higher and property sector dipped 0.11 percent .

The top gainer on Hang Seng was AIA Group up 2.07 percent, while the biggest loser was Country Garden Holdings Company which was down 2.36 percent.

China's main Shanghai Composite index closed up 0.35 percent at 3,307.974 points while its blue-chip CSI300 index ended up 0.31 percent.

Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.31 percent while Japan's Nikkei index closed down 0.08 percent .

The yuan was quoted at 6.5155 per U.S. dollar at 0813 GMT, 0.27 percent firmer than the previous close of 6.5333.

So far this year, China's H-share index is up around 24 percent.

The top gainers among H-shares were Air China up 3.49 percent, followed by Guangzhou Automobile Group gaining 2.78 percent and Great Wall Motor up by 2.16 percent.

The three biggest H-shares percentage decliners were Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric, which was down 2.02 percent, Postal Savings Bank of China which fell 1.0 percent and China Pacific Insurance Group down by 0.9 percent.

About 1.41 billion Hang Seng index shares were traded, roughly 79.1 percent of the market's 30-day moving average of 1.78 billion shares a day. The volume traded in the previous trading session was 1.38 billion.

At close, China's A-shares were trading at a premium of 30.35 percent over the Hong Kong-listed H-shares.

The price-to-earnings ratio of the Hang Seng index was 13.61 as of the last full trading day while the dividend yield was 2.9 percent.

So far this week, the market capitalisation of the Hang Seng index has risen by 1.04 percent to HK$19.57 trillion.

The short and one-factor leveraged Hang Seng index, which is designed to replicate the payoff of a short or leveraged portfolio and is linked to the movements of the Hang Seng Index, was lower by 0.18 percent on the day at 4,933.73 points.

(Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sam Holmes)