If the job data is stronger than expected, people will expect a longer rising trend in interest rate.

In the short term, there is uncertainty regarding share placements. Since August 31, fund-raising activities by various companies have raised about HK$22 billion from the market, so that is an overhang.

That's quite good for 2005, after the central administration implemented measures to cool down the economy.

It's unclear when the Fed will stop raising interest rates. Even if the rate hike comes to an end, Hong Kong's stock market may not rebound immediately.

It's a bit disappointing, personally, because I expected earnings growth to be 40 percent at least for the year.

There's concern about oversupply and price competition. Price competition has been very keen.

There were no nice or nasty surprises in the budget so market reaction was quite muted.

Although the market staged a technical rebound today, the lower turnover suggests that investors are cautious on concerns of possible austerity measures to be introduced by the Chinese government.

The strong sentiment of the US and Japan markets helped push up the index. The rally is very broad based.

The rise could also be attributed to some year-end window dressing activities as port related stocks has performed relatively poor earlier.