Hong Kong Scraps Stock Trading as Typhoon Utor Shutters City

Hong Kong canceled stock exchange trading, shut schools and offices and warned people to stay at home as Severe Typhoon Utor swept past China's financial center.

The No. 8 storm signal, the third highest, will be lowered at 2 p.m. as Typhoon Utor moves away to China, the Hong Kong Observatory said at 11:50 a.m.

More than 270 flights were canceled or delayed as the storm brought maximum wind speeds of 142 kilometers (88 miles) an hour. The typhoon, the first this year to prompt the raising of the No. 8 signal, is centered about 250 kilometers southwest of Hong Kong and is headed toward China's Guangdong province.

"It's like a ghost town, everything's closed," Gavin Parry, managing director of Hong Kong-based brokerage Parry International Trading Ltd., said by telephone. "It's eerie in that respect, given it's such a populous place and usually it's hustle and bustle."

Streets in the city's financial district were largely empty as people heeded the warning to stay indoors. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. (HSI) said in a statement it will reschedule its interim results to Aug. 15 from today because of the storm. The average daily securities turnover for the first seven months at the exchange was HK$65.7 billion ($8.5 billion).

"Utor will make landfall near Yangjiang over the western coast of Guangdong and will move gradually away from Hong Kong this afternoon," according to the observatory. "Local winds are expected to weaken gradually this afternoon."

Chinese Waves

The China Meteorological Administration said the storm will probably make landfall in the western part of Guangdong between noon and the evening. The government also said that there will be heavy rains along the coast.

Typhoon Utor is forecast to move northwest at about 16 kilometers an hour toward the western coast of Guangdong, the observatory said.

Hong Kong, situated off China's southern coast, gets on average about six tropical cyclones annually, according to the weather bureau. Severe Typhoon Vicente, the most serious storm to hit Hong Kong since 1999, brought schools, banks and flights to a halt last year as it felled trees and damaged a coal conveyor belt.

Flights Delayed

The government shut schools, and banks are closed to the public, according to the Hong Kong Association of Banks. A total of 100 flights were canceled and 174 were delayed as of 10 a.m. local time, according to the Hong Kong Airport Authority. There were no reports of flooding or landslides, the government said in a statement.

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (293), the city's biggest carrier, told passengers to defer non-essential travel.

Companies including Dah Chong Hong Holdings Ltd. and Citic Pacific Ltd. canceled post-earnings press conferences scheduled because of the weather.

Shun Tak Holdings Ltd.'s TurboJET, which operates a ferry service to Macau from Hong Kong, suspended services. The government said 41 people have sought refuge at shelters and a 26-year-old woman was earlier admitted to hospital for treatment. The government received three reports of fallen trees.

MTR Corp., the city's subway and train operator, reduced services by lengthening intervals to 10 minutes to 20 minutes, according to a statement on its website.

"I couldn't find a taxi today and had to walk 15 minutes to work," said Yueyang Hou, a trader at Capula Investment Management. "Most of my colleagues couldn't come in on time today because they had to take alternative transport."