Hong Kong’s latest stock-market drama is putting a spotlight on the volatile trading patterns of Chinese investors who use the territory’s cross-border exchange links.
The links’ most-active stock on Monday was a beauty-enhancing selfie app developer called Meitu Inc (美圖). After the shares surged as much as 28 percent over the course of the day, they tumbled as much as 33 percent in the final 90 minutes of trading.
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has requested the trading records of Meitu shares from brokers at least three times since January, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported yesterday, citing unidentified people.
Photo: Reuters
The moves were triggered by heavy trading from mainland investors, according to Mirabaud Asia Ltd, and reflect a pattern that is becoming more prevalent amid increased Chinese money flowing into the territory.
Meitu’s swings in the two weeks since it was added to Hong Kong’s stock-trading links with exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen raise questions about how the territory is going to cope with an influx of investors who often buy and sell on a whim.
“With southbound connect, certain elements of the Hong Kong market have become like China,” Mirabaud Hong Kong-based director of trading Andrew Clarke said. “As a trader, you wouldn’t go near them. The more we see trading patterns in stocks like we did in Meitu, the more likely the SFC and the exchange will push for stricter surveillance.”
Meitu said it had not been contacted by Hong Kong regulators in relation to any such investigation and was not in a position to provide further comment.
The stock was down another 10 percent as of midday in Hong Kong yesterday.
Meitu is set to announce last year’s earnings on Friday and said it expects further losses this year.
The shares soared 78 percent through Friday last week from March 6, when it was added to the mainland links. Meitu’s 30-day volatility on Monday rose to the highest level since its debut in December last year.
Meitu was the most traded southbound stock on Monday, with mainland investors accounting for about 30 percent of the HK$3.8 billion (US$489 million) volume, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
That helped push it to become the third-most traded company by value in Hong Kong that day, just behind blue-chips Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and China Mobile Ltd (中國移動).
The December last year start of second stock link, with Shenzhen, opened direct access for mainland investors to Hong Kong-listed mid-cap stocks.
Mainland investors bought a net 13 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) of Hong Kong stocks last week through exchange links, the most this year. Their net purchases totaled 3.73 billion yuan on Monday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”