Euphoria over AI drives Hong Kong stocks past 24,000 mark

Staff reporter and agencies

Hong Kong shares rallied to a fresh three-year high yesterday as investors continued to pile into artificial intelligence shares and welcomed new policy support.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index jumped by 775 points, or 3.3 percent, to 24,369 at the close, the highest in more than three years.

The main board turnover also soared to HK$377.1 billion.

The Hang Seng Tech Index rose 5.4 percent to 6,068 points after briefly touching its firmest since late 2021. Tech heavyweights Tencent (0700), Alibaba (9988), and JD.com (9618) all soared by over 7.6 percent amid news that Alibaba had released a new AI model that the company said was on par with global sensation DeepSeek's R1.

Meituan (3690) and Baidu (9888) both went up by more than 4.2 percent. The best performer among blue chip stocks was Kuaishou Technology (1024), whose shares went up by 15.7 percent.

Gains extended in the late afternoon session after a joint press conference hosted by China's top officials from the central bank, market regulators and others who pledged more support for the economy and markets.

Shares of CK Hutchison (0001) surged by over 9 percent, having rocketed more than 21 percent a day earlier.

Chinese developers also performed well on news that the country is considering removing a price cap for local governments buying unsold apartments.

Mainland markets also climbed, with the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index up 1.2 percent and the blue-chip CSI300 index gaining 1.4 percent.

The onshore yuan rose by 0.2 percent to the highest in one and a half months to 7.2428 against the greenback yesterday.

Goldman Sachs raised its target price for emerging market stocks, projecting that the AI-powered rally in Chinese equities could boost other markets as well.