Yesterday, the US stock market showed a soft performance, with stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region falling and mainland A shares plunging, while Hong Kong stocks notably closed lower. The Hang Seng Index opened lower by 80 points today (16th), plunging by as much as 542 points intraday, and closing at 25,235 points, down by 393 points (a decrease of 1.5%), with a trading volume of 201.5 billion. The H-share Index fell by 1.8%, while the Technology Index declined by 1.7%.
Tencent (00700) dropped by 1.1%, Alibaba (09988) plunged by 3.0%, Meituan (03690) fell by 1.3%, JD.com (09618) was down by 2.3%, HKEX (00388) declined by 1.9%, and HSBC Holdings (00005) neither rose nor fell. The best and worst performing blue-chip stocks were China Resources Beer (00291) rising by 1.1% and Zijin Mining (02899) dropping by 4.4%.
Charles Li, the CEO of HKEX (00388), stated in a blog post that as of 2025, Hong Kong’s new stock market has welcomed more than 100 listed companies, including the two largest IPOs globally this year, raising a total of over 270 billion yuan. Looking ahead to 2026, over 300 IPO applications are still in process, indicating continued interest from companies to list in Hong Kong.
Bitcoin briefly fell below the $86,000 mark, putting pressure on stocks related to cryptocurrencies, with Boyaa Interactive (00434) down by 3.9% and New Frontier Technologies (01611) falling by 3.0%.
Bank of East Asia released the “2026 Economic and Market Outlook” report, forecasting that the economies of mainland China and Hong Kong will continue to grow in 2026, with China’s economy expected to grow by about 4.8% and Hong Kong’s by 2.5% to 3%.
Fosun Pharma (02196, down by 5.8%) plans to acquire the controversial drug developer Lu Gu pharmaceuticals, leading to a significant drop in its stock price.
As of the time of writing, Brent crude oil fell by 0.8% to $60.1 per barrel, with the “Big Three” oil companies showing weak performance, as PetroChina (00857) dropped by 1.4%, CNOOC (00883) by 2.3%, and Sinopec (00386) by 1.6%.