Share prices finished the morning higher but gave up sharp early gains as worries over the local earnings outlook prevented investors from celebrating Wall Street's two-day rally and the continued fall of oil prices.

The local bourse staged an early technical rebound from Tuesday's 2.5 pct fall. However, the rally quickly lost steam as investors shifted their focus to local factors after a couple of firms reported poor interim results, dealers said.

The Hong Kong market was closed yesterday due to a typhoon.

Cathay Pacific and Bank of East Asia slumped after both reported bad interim results, while Standard Chartered surged nearly 4 pct after strong interim results.

China airlines tumbled after Cathay's earnings debacle, while pure upstream oil play CNOOC was down as oil prices continued to slide.

Hunan Nonferrous Metals Corp tumbled over 10 pct after the company issued a profit warning for the first half.

The Hang Seng index closed the morning up 129.76 points or 0.59 pct at 22,079.51, off a low of 21,915.28 and a high of 22,424.54.

Turnover was 43.98 bln hkd.

Mainland airlines tumbled after Cathay's poor results, with China Eastern slumping 0.22 hkd or 8.87 pct to 2.26, China Southern losing 0.20 hkd or 6.12 pct to 3.07, and Air China down 0.19 hkd or 4.47 pct at 4.06.

Hunan Nonferrous Metals tumbled 0.18 hkd or 10.23 pct to 1.58 after the company said its net profit for the six months ended June may decrease significantly due to a substantially lower average selling price for its zinc products.

Swire Pacific, parent of Cathay Pacific, was down 0.80 hkd or 1.01 pct at 78.20 ahead of its first-half results announcement today. During the lunch break, Swire said it earned 12.39 bln hkd in the frist six months, versus 12.49 bln a year earlier.

Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, reversed direction and was down 0.09 hkd or 1.67 pct at 5.29 ahead of its first quarter to June results announcement.

Local properties were mostly higher following the US Federal Reserve's decision this week to leave interest rates unchanged.

Cheung Kong rose 1.80 hkd or 1.66 pct at 110.0, Wharf Holdings was up 1.70 hkd or 5.31 pct at 33.70, Henderson Land was up 0.25 hkd or 0.53 pct at 47.40, and Sun Hung Kai Properties was flat at 111.0.

Oil refiners rose as light, sweet crude settled down 59 US cents at 118.58 usd a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange overnight.

Sinopec rose 0.13 hkd or 1.61 pct to 8.2 and PetroChina -- which has both refining and production business -- was up 0.10 hkd or 0.98 pct at 10.26.

Pure upstream oil play CNOOC fell 0.18 hkd or 1.67 pct to 10.62.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises index was down 34.35 points or 0.29 pct at 11,913.29.

(1 usd = 7.8 hkd)