Hong Kong Stocks Rise 1.37% at Midday, Auto Stocks Lead Gains
N.R. Finch
The Hang Seng Index rose 1.37% to 25,657 by midday, led by auto stocks rallying on China's push to draft a connected-vehicle "15th Five-Year" plan; morning turnover hit HK$173 billion, signalling strong buying conviction.
Why did auto stocks surge across the board?
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is accelerating work on a connected-vehicle "15th Five-Year" plan — the policy signal lit up the entire sector.
Li Auto jumped 10%, leading blue chips. Chery Auto rose 6.73%; BYD gained nearly 5%.
BYD has two extra catalysts of its own: a humanoid-robot product expected to debut in August, and brokerages forecasting its export momentum will carry into Q3.
This means → the auto rally is not a single-event trade — policy + product + exports are firing on three cylinders at once.
Why did smart-driving names rally in tandem?
Brokerages see smart-driving democratisation — bringing advanced driver-assist from premium cars down to mid- and low-price models — as a confirmed accelerating trend.
CiDi Inc. rose 8%; Hesai Group rose 7%. One supplies smart-driving solutions, the other makes lidar sensors — both sit upstream in the value chain.
In plain terms = when smart driving shifts from "premium option" to "standard feature," component and solution makers see order volumes jump a tier.
What is driving the tech heavyweights?
Xiaomi surged over 9%, with northbound capital adding positions steadily via Stock Connect.
Alibaba added another 1.7% after releasing its Qwen 3.8 model; the market expects the company to benefit from AI-driven cloud growth.
This means → the two tech leaders are rising on different logic — Xiaomi on fund flows, Alibaba on AI-product delivery expectations.
Which consumer and special-situation plays are leading?
Bloks Group soared over 17%; Mixue Group rose 7.34% — new-consumer names rallied on multiple drivers.
China Tobacco International (HK) gained over 7% after a new duty-free tobacco policy landed, further cementing the company's exclusive-distribution advantage.
Evergrande Property Services rose 6% as the controlling-stake sale process restarted, with potential buyers about to begin due diligence.
This reflects a market that is not chasing only the main theme — capital is simultaneously hunting peripheral names with high policy-delivery certainty.
Who is falling against the tide?
YOFC dropped over 8% — U.S. fibre-optics peer Corning issued slightly below-expectation Q3 guidance and saw its shares slump, dragging the fibre sector with it.
Nanjing Panda Electronics fell over 10% after the company stated it has no mature brain-computer interface products, deflating a concept-driven rally.
GigaDevice slid another 10%-plus; consumer-client purchasing power has hit a ceiling, and Q3 DRAM price growth may slow.
In plain terms = the falling stocks share one trait: expectations ran too far ahead, and reality is now pulling them back.
What does South Korea's circuit breaker mean?
The KOSDAQ index plunged in early trading, triggering a circuit breaker — an exchange-enforced trading halt when declines exceed a set threshold.
The direct casualty: CSOP 2x Leveraged SK Hynix crashed 25% — a double-leveraged derivative product that falls twice as fast as the index.
This means → leveraged products amplify losses exponentially in extreme moves; the circuit breaker itself signals a concentrated burst of panic in the Korean market.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.