Hong Kong Market Sees Widespread Declines in AI and Semiconductor Stocks, While Battery Shares Advance

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index concluded trading on May 5th down 0.756%, with the Hang Seng Tech Index falling 0.945%.

Major technology and internet stocks closed broadly lower. Midea Group and BYD Company declined nearly 2%, while Xiaomi Corporation and Meituan dropped over 1%. Sectors including large language models and semiconductors experienced intraday pullbacks. KNOWLEDGE ATLAS fell close to 4%, Minimax declined more than 2%, SMIC dropped nearly 2%, and Hua Hong Semiconductor fell over 1%. Consumer stocks such as apparel and automobiles also trended lower, with Li Ning and ANTA Sports Products down approximately 4%, and Leapmotor declining 3.7%. Oil and gas stocks rebounded, with Shandong Molong Petroleum Machinery rising over 4%.

Conversely, some lithium battery stocks showed strength against the market trend. Rexon Holding surged more than 11%, Hongqiao Group advanced over 8%, Tianneng Power gained nearly 4%, and CATL rose more than 3%, with its latest share price at HK$655. Recently, Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating on CATL's Hong Kong shares to overweight. The institution forecasts that the company's next-generation sodium-ion and condensed matter battery technologies will achieve rapid, large-scale commercialization, potentially accelerating profit growth and market share gains over the next three years. The firm raised its target price by 17% to HK$815 per share.

Among other notable individual stocks, HSBC HOLDINGS fell over 5%. The decline followed the company's midday announcement of its first-quarter results, reporting reported pre-tax profit of $9.376 billion for the period ending March 31st, a decrease of 1.14% year-over-year, which fell short of market expectations. Tianxing Medical surged 118.27% on its first day of trading, closing at HK$215 per share. China Tourism Group Duty Free dropped more than 4%, after having fallen over 7% intraday to a fresh nearly seven-month low.

Securities analysts noted that risk appetite among investors tended to be cautious ahead of the holiday period, although southbound capital maintained relatively strong net inflows. Activity remained active in sectors like semiconductors, AI computing, and some newly listed stocks, indicating continued structural allocation of funds towards domestic computing power, the AI industry chain, and high-growth segments. Considering the ongoing iteration of domestic large language models, expanding demand for AI computing power, and the relative attractiveness of Hong Kong's tech sector valuation, analysts believe the Hang Seng Tech Index still holds allocation value from a medium-term perspective.

Other analysis suggests that Hong Kong technology stocks are currently at a resonance point characterized by low valuations, the dissipation of negative factors, returning capital flows, and AI-driven catalysts, highlighting their investment appeal. Continuous catalysts within the AI industry chain are driving an uptrend in the prosperity of sectors such as hardware, cloud computing, and internet applications. With expectations for both earnings recovery and valuation re-rating, Hong Kong tech stocks already present a favorable risk-reward profile for medium-term allocation and represent a high-quality investment direction within the current technology theme.