The U.S. stock market weakened last Friday, with mainland A-shares slipping and Hong Kong stocks notably closing lower. The Hang Seng Index opened 258 points lower today (December 15th), showed a sluggish performance throughout the day, closing at 25,628 points, down 347 points (or 1.3%), with a turnover of 204.3 billion. The A50 Index dropped 1.8%, while the HSTECH Index fell by 2.5%.
Tencent (00700) fell by 2.1%, Alibaba (09988) dropped 3.6%, Meituan (03690) fell by 1.5%, JD.com (09618) declined by 1.8%, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (00388) bucked the trend with a 0.5% increase, and HSBC Holdings (00005) fell by 0.9%. The best and worst performing blue-chip stocks were Li Ning (02331) rising by 5.4% and Johnson Pharmaceuticals (03692) plummeting by 7.6%.
China Evergrande Group (02202) saw a 5.2% decline as its “22 Evergrande MTN004” medium-term notes matured today, with a remaining balance of 2 billion RMB. The company held its first noteholders’ meeting on December 10th, where the proposal for a one-year debt extension was not approved.
According to local reports, Meituan announced internally the suspension of its “Meituan Selection” business, shifting focus to explore new retail formats. Meituan Selection was launched in 2020 as a B2C e-commerce business.
HSBC Holdings (00005) has formally sent out plan documents proposing to privatize Bank of East Asia (00011) by way of a scheme arrangement, pricing each share at 155 HK dollars. A court meeting and a shareholders’ meeting for Bank of East Asia are scheduled for January 8, 2026, for approval. If the proposal is passed and approved by the High Court of Hong Kong, the privatization plan is expected to take effect on January 26, with the delisting of Bank of East Asia shares from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to follow on January 27.
Rating agency Fitch Ratings predicts that China Evergrande Group may continue to shrink next year, with a projected 7%-8% decline in sales of new residential properties, amounting to around 7 trillion RMB. This is primarily due to a 5% decrease in sales area and a low single-digit percentage drop in average selling price.
At the time of writing, Brent crude oil slightly dipped by 0.1% to $61.5 per barrel. As for the “Big Three” oil companies, PetroChina (00857) fell by 1.2%, CNOOC (00883) dropped by 1.0%, and Sinopec (00386) rose by 1.8%.