HONG KONG (Reuters) - Shares of HSBC <0005.HK> vaulted more than 10 percent to a one-month high on Thursday, feeding off a rally in Wall Street banks, spurred by encouraging U.S. homes sales and an expected loosening in accounting rules.
By 0637 GMT, shares in HSBC had rallied 10 percent to HK$46.15, after hitting HK$47.30 earlier - its highest level since it reported 2008 earnings on March 2, as the technical overhang related to its massive $18 billion rights issue, announced in March, subsided.
Wednesday was the last day of trading of the bank's nil-paid rights in London.
The stock fell 19 percent in March, far underperforming a 6 percent rally on the main index.
Australian brokerage Macquarie raised its rating on the stock to neutral from underperform saying the stock was likely to re-rate following the completion of the bank's equity raising exercise.
Macquarie has a target price of HK$46 on the stock while BOCI expects HSBC to trade between HK$38-HK$46 in the near term.
(Reporting by Parvathy Ullatil; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)