AI and EVs propel stock market rally

Staff reporter and Reuters

Hong Kong stocks climbed to a more than three-year high yesterday, driven by fervor over upbeat news from Chinese artificial intelligence giants and electric vehicle makers.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index ended at 24,740 - about 595 points or 2.46 percent higher than the previous close - with a main board turnover of HK$285.93 billion and at its highest level since early February 2022.

The Hang Seng Tech Index leapt 3.96 percent to 6,105 points while the China Enterprises Index increased by 2.79 percent to 9,177.8 points.

Shenzhen Dobot (2432) surged 28.16 percent after debuting a 199,000 yuan (HK$213,751) full-sized humanoid robot.

Midea (0300) also rose by 10 percent after unveiling its first humanoid robot that it claims is capable of performing various actions and understanding voice commands to execute corresponding tasks.

Alibaba (9988) leapt 5.9 percent on the back of a plan to evaluate team performance via AI.

Baidu (9888) rose 12.2 percent following its release of a new open-source AI model.

And Tencent (0700), which unveiled five new fully open-source three-dimension generation models towards the end of trading, rose 3.1 percent.

EV makers jumped with Nio (9866) rising 8.9 percent on its partnership with CATL for battery swapping and BYD (1211) up by 4.1 percent on a new faster-charging platform.

Henderson Land Development (0012), whose founder Lee Shau-kee passed away on Monday evening at 97 years of age, rose to HK$23.4 before retreating to HK$23.10 only 0.6 percent higher than the previous close, while Henderson Investment (0097) surged over 67 percent.

Among shares of other Henderson firms mixed, The Hong Kong and China Gas Company (0003) ended flat, Towngas Smart Energy (1083) edged up 0.8 percent and Hong Kong Ferry (0050) 1.6 percent.

Miramar Hotel and Investment (0071) gained 3.8 percent ahead of the 2024 full-year results.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index edged by three points to 3,429 and the Shenzhen Component Index gained 56 points to 11,014.

Meanwhile, dozens of foreign chief executives will visit Beijing this month for a flagship business conference and some will meet President Xi Jinping, as China seeks to attract foreign investment to offset the effect of US tariffs and sluggish consumption.