Hong Kong stocks at the losing end

Hong Kong stocks fell by nearly 1 percent yesterday with SenseTime (0020) plunging 11 percent, but East Buy (1797) jumped 22 percent after firing its chief executive.

SenseTime plunged its most in more than a year after its co-founder's death spooked investors already grappling with fallout from slowing growth and US sanctions.

The Chinese AI firm slid as much as 18 percent before recouping some of those losses to finish 11 percent lower, after they disclosed that 55-year-old co-founder and major shareholder Tang Xiao'ou died of illness on Friday.

Tang had a 21 percent stake in SenseTime, according to the firm's 2022 annual report.

East Buy, the livestream e-commerce unit of China's New Oriental Education and Technology (9901), said popular host Dong Yuhui was promoted as senior partner, which sent shares surging 21.9 percent.

Dong's promotion comes as previous chief executive Sun Dongxu was fired in a move to calm public anger that was triggered by the company's attempts to reduce Dong's impact on livestreaming business.

Chairman Yu Minhong also apologized and will step in as chief executive.

XPeng (9868) experienced a 6.7 percent decline after Alibaba (9988) revealed its intent to sell 25 million shares of the electric vehicle maker, listed in the US for US$391 million (HK$3.05 billion).

Meanwhile, GOGOX (2246) announced that its chairman Chen Xiaohua and company's secretary Yu Wing-sze will resign. Alibaba (9988) had offloaded 4.72 million shares with an average price of HK$0.65 earlier this month, reducing stake from 11.17 percent to 10.42 percent. Shares of GOGOX fell 1.89 percent to HK$0.52 yesterday.

The market benchmark Hang Seng Index lost 162 points on Monday after a strong rally last week, with a turnover of HK$94.3 billion. The tech gauge dipped 1.3 percent or 50 points.