HONG KONG: Chinese and Hong Kong stocks extended their losses on Friday, as market sentiment came under pressure from renewed US-China tech tensions and a disappointing earnings report from Alibaba.
Tech shares lift Hong Kong stocks, earnings in focus
At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.52% at 3,363.32 points.
China’s blue-chip CSI300 index was down 0.57%, with its financial sector sub-index lower by 1.31%, the consumer staples sector down 1.04%, the real estate index down 0.61% and the healthcare sub-index down 0.36%.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was down 0.81% at 23,262.80.
Index heavyweight Alibaba Group lost 5.3% by midday after the e-commerce giant posted quarterly revenue below analysts’ estimates on Thursday.
On the geopolitical front, the US Commerce Department is considering placing more Chinese companies, including ChangXin Memory (CXMT), on its restricted export list, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is also looking at adding subsidiaries of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co to the “Entity List”, the source said.
“Market focus has shifted to the US-China competition on other fields, such as semiconductor and healthcare, after the two countries significantly reduced tariffs for each other,” said Dickie Wong, executive director of research at Kingston Securities.
While US-China tariff truce is a positive surprise to the market, a durable resolution remains challenging, given the complex bilateral relationship, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note, adding sentiment on mainland A-shares edged down this week with lower trading volume.
The smaller Shenzhen index was up 0.34%, the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was higher by 0.16% and Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR50 index was down 0.59%.
Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 0.15% while Japan’s Nikkei index was down 0.04%.
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