HONG KONG: China and Hong Kong shares fell on Thursday, pressured by tech and AI-related firms, although gains in banking and energy stocks helped cushion the broader decline.
China, HK stocks recover losses despite Wall Street slide
At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.4% and China’s blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.2%.
The Hang Seng Index weakened 0.7% in Hong Kong, while the Hang Seng Tech Index slipped 2.2%.
Tech shares led the losses in both onshore and offshore trading. The CSI AI Index dropped 2.2%, heading for its biggest single-day decline in two weeks, while Alibaba and Tencent retreated 2.7% and 1.4%, respectively, in Hong Kong.
However, the banking index climbed 0.6% and energy shares rallied 3.2%, helping limit declines.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump threatened to escalate a global trade war with further tariffs on European Union goods, as major US trading partners said they would retaliate for trade barriers already erected by the US president.
The resilience of Chinese stocks in the face of the US equity selloff could be unsustainable as the economies could deteriorate as US demand – the sole pillar of global growth in the past two years – vanishes and tariffs bite, analysts at BCA Research said in a note.
Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index fell 0.49% while Japan’s Nikkei index was up 0.42%.