Hong Kong stocks advanced amid a bullish view on earnings among Chinese tech leaders, overshadowing concerns about a wider fallout among at least 10 Chinese biotech companies including BeiGene from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
The Hang Seng Index rose 2.15 percent as of 11.20am local time, while the Tech Index gained 4.24 percent and the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.65 percent. The city’s benchmark index slumped 6.1 percent last week, the most since October.
Tencent jumped 5.55 percent to HK$350.00, while Alibaba Group added 4.37 percent to HK$84.37.Insurer AIA Group strengthened 1.1 percent to HK$82.65 and China Mobile surged 1.6 percent to HK$63.00. Among losers, Chinese developer Country Garden tumbled 4.6 percent to HK$2.09, peer Longfor Group dropped 0.5 percent to HK$21.60.
What moved the Hang Seng Index?
While companies in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan posted record misses in fourth-quarter earnings, China, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia have been the bright spots with results tracking above full-year estimates, according to Goldman Sachs.
“Consumer, TMT (telecoms, media and tech), and healthcare services/equipment will lead the recovery in 2023,” the US investment bank said in a report to clients. “Consensus earnings revisions have recently stabilised but upgrades are still absent, except for TMT.”
BeiGene tumbled 1.3 percent to HK$132.10. The firm said it had 3.9 percent, or about US$175million, of its US$4.5 billion cash locked up in the failed California-based lender. Other companies including Sirnaomics, MobVista and Noah Holdings reported minimal exposure to the bank.
“Investor sentiment is likely to remain fragile in the near term against the background of US banking sector concerns,” analysts at Nomura said in a note to clients. “Market focus will likely remain on the fallout from the failure of SVB.”
US financial regulators on Sunday moved to reassure all depositors of Silicon Valley Bank, following the lender’s sudden collapse on Friday following a run. The Federal Reserve said it would set up a new lending programme with funds from the Treasury Department, even as tech start-ups worried about paying their staff this month.
Major Asia-Pacific markets fell. Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 1.6 percent, South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.5 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent.
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