HONG KONG: China stocks edged lower on Friday after touching a fresh decade-high, while renewed AI optimism drove Hong Kong shares to a four-year peak.
The Shanghai Composite index ended 0.1 percent lower, after gaining as much as 0.4 percent in morning trades to 3892.73, a new high since August 2015.
China’s blue-chip CSI300 index lost 0.6 percent to pull back from the highest level since early 2022.
Still, the two indexes respectively made a 1.5 percent and 1.4 percent weekly gain, recovering from the sharp correction in the opening week of September that was triggered by profit-taking after China’s military parade.
“Investors are likely temporarily taking profits and awaiting clear signals on macro, policy and fundamentals after a solid good run since June,” Morgan Stanley’s China strategist Laura Wang wrote in a note.
Aiding sentiment, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng and senior officials next week in Madrid to continue negotiations on trade, economic and national security issues, Reuters reported.
The banking sector declined 1.5 percent, weighing on the market. The rare earth sector added 2.7 percent and the steel sector gained 1.6 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 1.2 percent to 26,388.16, near the highest since August 2021. The benchmark has added 3.8 percent for the week, the best weekly gain since March.
The Hang Seng Tech Index advanced 1.7 percent on Friday and registered a 5.3 percent weekly rise. An index tracking AI-related shares moved 1.8 percent higher.
Leading gains on the day, tech major Alibaba rallied 5.4 percent and Baidu jumped 8 percent after reports that they have started using internally designed chips to train their AI models, partly replacing those made by Nvidia.
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