Southbound Stock Connect Average Daily Turnover Surges 84% YoY to HK$124.1 Billion, Hitting Record 24% Market Share
Taylor Wilson
Southbound Stock Connect daily turnover surged 84% to HK$124.1 billion, now accounting for nearly a quarter of Hong Kong's total — mainland money is shifting from a supplementary flow to one of the market's main arteries.
How large is the mainland footprint now?
Southbound Stock Connect average daily turnover rose 84% year-on-year to HK$124.1 billion, a record 24% of Hong Kong's total market turnover.
This means → roughly one in every four dollars traded in Hong Kong now originates from mainland investors via the Connect scheme.
On the northbound side, cumulative inflows into mainland equities have reached RMB 1.47 trillion, with average turnover at 6.3% of total mainland volume — cross-border penetration is deepening in both directions.
How much has Hong Kong's own liquidity improved?
Hong Kong's overall average daily turnover jumped 54% to a record HK$258 billion.
IPO proceeds surged 272% to HK$379 billion; post-listing fundraising rose 18% to HK$259 billion.
After the SFC's first-phase cut to minimum tick sizes — the smallest price increment a stock can move — bid-ask spreads on affected stocks narrowed 38% and execution times improved 26%.
In plain terms = tighter spreads and faster fills mean lower real trading costs for both institutions and retail investors.
What changed in the ETF and fund space?
ETF and leveraged-and-inverse product average daily turnover grew 50.6% year-on-year to HK$38.1 billion; total market cap rose 25.2% to HK$651.2 billion.
Single-stock leveraged and inverse product market cap surged 60 times within the year — this reflects a sharp rise in demand for short-term hedging and amplified-return tools.
Total assets under management in Hong Kong-domiciled funds jumped 19.4% to HK$2.3 trillion.
How fast is the digital-asset ecosystem growing?
Assets under management across 13 SFC-authorised retail tokenised products rose nearly six-fold year-on-year to HK$10.8 billion.
11 virtual-asset spot ETFs saw total market cap grow 90% since their 2024 launch; trading volume across 12 licensed virtual-asset trading platforms surged 125% over the past year.
This means → Hong Kong is positioning a regulated digital-asset market as a competitive differentiator against Singapore and Dubai. Scale is still modest, but growth is outpacing traditional products.
Where does the rates-market link stand?
Swap Connect — a channel for mainland and Hong Kong investors to trade interest-rate swaps across the border — hit a single-month record of RMB 821 billion in March 2026.
Cumulative RMB interest-rate swap notional has now exceeded RMB 11.6 trillion.
In plain terms = equity-level Connect has been running for a decade; derivatives-level Connect is now accelerating to catch up.
What comes next?
SFC Chairman Tim Lui set the tone: consolidate Hong Kong's role as the irreplaceable bridge between the mainland and international markets.
CEO Julia Leung emphasised responsible innovation and building a future-ready financial ecosystem.
Whether southbound turnover share can push past 24% in the coming year will be the key test of how far the Connect deepening agenda has actually reached.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.