SHANGHAI, July 18 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong stocks fell on Tuesday after weak economic data disappointed investors, while a raft of sell-side analysts lowered their full-year growth forecast for the world's second-largest economy.
** China's blue-chip CSI300 Index closed down 0.3%, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4%. Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng Index was down 2.1%.
** A streak of economic data posted on Monday confirmed that growth remained sluggish in the second quarter.
** Economists and analysts have since downgraded their expectations for China's full-year growth.
** Morgan Stanley cut China's 2023 economic growth forecast by 0.7 percentage points to 5% after the country reported a "weak" second-quarter GDP reading.
** "None of the major banks are looking for sub-5% growth at this point, however, likely due to a general expectation that further policy stimulus will be forthcoming, at least to prevent further deterioration," said Alvin Tan, head of Asia FX strategy at RBC Capital Markets.
** In Hong Kong, after the market reopened from an unexpected closure on Monday due to Typhoon Talim, tech shares were down 2.4%, partially reflecting the weak economic data.
** Mainland properties traded in Hong Kong lost 5.4%, their worst single-day performance in nearly seven months, after the world's most indebted property developer, China Evergrande Group posted steep losses in its overdue financial results.
** The property sector continued to be the primary drag on the economy, said Yibei Dong at Gavekal Dragonomics.
** "All major indicators — including sales, project starts and completions — worsened in June, (when) measured as a share of seasonally adjusted 2019 levels," Dong said.
(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sohini Goswami and Eileen Soreng)