HONG KONG: China and Hong Kong shares fell on Thursday, pressured by tech and AI-related firms, although gains in banking and energy stocks helped cushion the broader decline.
China, HK stocks recover losses despite Wall Street slide
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At the midday break, the Shanghai Composite index was down 0.4% and China’s blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.2%.
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The Hang Seng Index weakened 0.7% in Hong Kong, while the Hang Seng Tech Index slipped 2.2%.
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Tech shares led the losses in both onshore and offshore trading. The CSI AI Index dropped 2.2%, heading for its biggest single-day decline in two weeks, while Alibaba and Tencent retreated 2.7% and 1.4%, respectively, in Hong Kong.
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However, the banking index climbed 0.6% and energy shares rallied 3.2%, helping limit declines.
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On Wednesday, Donald Trump threatened to escalate a global trade war with further tariffs on European Union goods, as major US trading partners said they would retaliate for trade barriers already erected by the US president.
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The resilience of Chinese stocks in the face of the US equity selloff could be unsustainable as the economies could deteriorate as US demand – the sole pillar of global growth in the past two years – vanishes and tariffs bite, analysts at BCA Research said in a note.
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Around the region, MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index fell 0.49% while Japan’s Nikkei index was up 0.42%.
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