Hong Kong stocks was slightly lower in a shortened trading session on Friday ahead of the Christmas holiday, with the weighted index losing 69.17 points, or 0.30 percent, to end at 22,833.80.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index opened up 29.53 points at 22,932. 50 and traded between 22,776.62 and 22,948.25 during the day's session.
The benchmark index rose 0.5 percent this week.
Market volume totaled 23.63 billion HK dollars, up from 23.02 billion HK dollars at Thursday's midday break. Turnover for Thursday's full session totaled 43.98 billion HK dollars.
Analysts in Hong Kong said they expected trade to be muted in the three and a half trading sessions left this year, with the benchmark index facing resistance at 23,300, due to concerns about further tightening in the Chinese mainland to curb rising inflation.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index on Friday went down 73.58 points, or 0.59 percent, to close at 12,442.94.
Three of the four sub-indices lost ground. The Commerce and Industry sub-index fell 0.14 percent, the Finance lost 0.46 percent, the Properties shed 0.40 percent. Only the utilities rose 0.06 percent.
Heavyweight HSBC lost 0.38 percent to 79.65 HK dollars, and China Mobile fell 0.39 percent to 76.45 HK dollars.
Chinese lenders extended losses Friday. China Construction Bank fell 1.16 percent to 6.78 HK dollars, and Bank of Communications dipped 0.89 percent at 7.74 HK dollars. Bank of China decreased 0.25 percent to 4.03 HK dollars. ICBC inched down 0.35 percent to 5.68 HK dollars.
Cheung Kong fell 0.66 percent to 120.00 HK dollars.
Bucking the downtrend, exporter Li & Fung rose 2.8 percent to 45.50 HK dollars.
Hong Kong's stock market will be closed Monday for the Christmas holiday and will trade for just half a day on Dec. 31. (7.779 HK dollars =1 U.S. dollar)
