Historical stock prices | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Historical stock prices

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Submitted by Compradore on Sat, 2011-08-13 08:41

Does anyone know where to find accurate historical stock prices for Hong Kong companies in the 1970s? 

The HK Economic Journal did not come into existence until mid-'73 and some of the other sources I have seen over the years do not seem very accurate.  It doesn't help that there were multiple stock exchanges at the time.  I am looking for information about market capitalizations, share price, earnings per share, dividends, etc . . . for the major companies like Jardine Matheson, Hongkong Land, Hongkong Bank and Hutchison.

I understand that HKLand was the largest property company in the world by market value (and its capitalization in '73 was more than the market value of the biggest UK property developers combined).  However I have read vastly different figures about HKLand's actual market capitalization - I have seen between 2.5 billion (USD) to 5 billion.

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Submitted by namussi on Tue, 2011-08-16 14:44.

www.compustat.com

HKU library has a subscription. You could also look for annual reports in the library from the 1970s. Bloomberg and Reuters might also have data going back that far. Then again, might not.

And in no particular order, here are some other suggestions:

Secondly, try Hang Seng Indices. The main index has been calculated since 1964 (when it was 100). So you might want to start with an email to them. The website is www.hsi.com.hk  

Thirdly, you could always ask the companies themselves if they can give you the data. 

Fourthly, try emailing researchers at the various business schools in Hong Kong. There may well be a data set already compiled.

Fifthly, there's the hard way: looking in newspapers from the period. The Singapore national library has digitised the Straits Times and other Singaporean newspapers going back to the early 19th century. Do a search for "hang seng" and the name of the company: newspapers.nl.sg (Ironically I find this is a much easier way to get info about Hong Kong news on a particular day than trying to get it online in Hong Kong.)

Sixthly, have you asked the HK Exchange itself for advice? 

Apologies if you have tried these already. 

Submitted by Compradore on Thu, 2011-08-18 04:41.

Thanks, namussi!  Your suggestion of Strait Times has been very useful!  It is indeed much easier to use the Singapore library resource to find old news about Hong Kong.  There are a couple of Strait Times articles that cannot be viewed in person though.

I have tried all the others and people usually don't know or companies don't respond to requests about their operations from nearly 40-yr. ago.

Thanks again.

Submitted by namussi on Wed, 2011-08-24 11:34.

Try the archives:

http://www.grs.gov.hk/PRO/srch/english/search_fields.jsp?p1=stock+exchan...

..that is, if you don't mind going through lots and lots of microfilm records.

Good luck.