China, HK stocks fall as initial Sino-US trade optimism wanes

HONG KONG: Stocks in China and Hong Kong traded lower on Thursday, led by declines in the tech sector, as markets struggled to sustain the positive momentum from the Sino-US trade talks that lacked concrete details.

China’s blue-chip CSI 300 Index closed about 0.1% lower after wavering through the day, slipping from the three-week high touched on Wednesday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1.4% at close to pull back from the nearly three-month high hit in the previous session.

Tech shares led losses in onshore and offshore markets. The CSI Semiconductor Index shed 1.5%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 2.2%.

Among major losers, chipmaker SMIC fell 2% to a one-week low. Alibaba weakened 3.2% and EV-maker Xpeng slid 6.7%.

The CSI Rare Earth Index closed flat after slipping nearly 1% in the morning session and continued to hover near its seven-month high.

A trade truce between the world’s two biggest economies was back on track, U.S President Donald Trump said, a day after negotiators from Washington and Beijing agreed on a framework to ease bilateral retaliatory tariffs.

Under the agreement, Beijing will lift export curbs on rare earth minerals and the US will restore Chinese students’ access to its universities, Trump said on Truth Social.

Yet the terms remain subject to final approvals, with details notably absent. The 55% tariffs on Chinese imports will also stay, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

“We still don’t know if what Trump says will actually happen. It’s disappointing that the tariffs rates were not dialled down at all and tech curbs on China were not even mentioned,” said Jason Chan, senior investment strategist at Bank of East Asia, Hong Kong.