HK stocks may rise on Wall St gains; banks eyed

Hong Kong stocks may rise onThursday, tracking gains on Wall Street, with banking shareslikely in focus after Agricultural Bank of China completed its massive IPO.

The Hang Seng Index .HSI closed down 1.1 percent at19,857.07 on Wednesday. The China Enterprises Index .HSCE fell1.3 percent.

"Following the strength in the U.S. market, the HSI will probably rise to the 20,300 level," said Alex Wong, director at Ample Finance Group. "We might also see some recovery in banking shares now that the large fundraising by AgBank is over andconcerns about liquidity are now gone."

 AgBank's IPO is set to raise about $22 billion and would bethe world's largest initial public offering ever. U.S. shares posted their biggest one-day gain in about sixweeks on Wednesday on an upbeat outlook for corporate earnings.

 In the region, Japan's Nikkei .N225 was up 2.6 percent andSouth Korea's KOSPI  was 1.4 percent higher as of 0055 GMT.