HK stocks slide but trading volume surges

Hong Kong stocks dipped slightly on Monday, though trading volume exploded to HK$400 million following President Xi Jinping's meeting with leaders of the country's top tech companies.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index closed 0.02 percent or 4 points lower to 22,616 by the end of the day, with the main board's turnover surging to HK$400.2 billion.

The blue-chip index failed to maintain the 22,977 points seen in the morning – the highest in more the four months – on extended optimism over tech shares, which had driven the indicator to end higher for five consecutive weeks.

Following a drop to as low as 22,319 points in the afternoon, the indicator rallied about 1 percent after China’s state broadcaster CCTV released the video of Xi meeting with leaders of Alibaba (9988), Huawei, Xiaomi (1810), BYD (1211) and other mainland tech giants.

The Hang Seng Tech Index ended at 5,499 points, down 0.5 percent from the previous close, after hitting a nearly three-year high of 5,656.

Alibaba dropped 1.5 percent to HK$122.20 apiece while Baidu (9888) plunged 6.9 percent.

Tencent’s (0700) jump shrank along with the market to 4 percent, closing at HK$493.60 per share. The tech giant recently confirmed reports that its Weixin instant messaging app has launched beta testing with DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence model. Jefferies had raised its target price for Tencent to HK$550.

China Unicom (0762) jumped 7.6 percent, the best-performing blue-chip stock.

In the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,355 points, up by nine points or 0.27 percent, while the Shenzhen Component Index rose 41 points or 0.39 percent to 10,791.

STAFF REPORTER