Hang Seng Tech rises throughout the day - weak rebound or right-side reversal established?

Question AI · How to reshape Hong Kong stock tech valuations in the second half of the AI narrative?

On March 16, amid bullish signals from Wall Street’s big short sellers, positive news of internet giants releasing AI models and latest earnings reports, the Hang Seng Tech Index rose throughout the day. Previously lagging components led the gains, with Xiaomi up over 5% and Meituan up over 3%.

By 3 p.m. in the A-share market, the Hang Seng Tech ETF (513180.SH) and Hang Seng Internet ETF (513330.SH) increased by 2.94% and 2.00%, respectively; by 4 p.m. in the Hong Kong market, the same ETFs and their underlying indices, Hang Seng Tech and Hang Seng Internet, maintained upward momentum in the last hour, closing the day up 2.69% and 2.32%.

The Hong Kong tech sector is mainly internet-focused, with software applications and e-commerce consumption as key areas. In the first half of the AI narrative, upstream computing hardware and other high-certainty performance sectors outperformed, so Hong Kong tech stocks were relatively disadvantaged due to structural reasons, weighed down by e-commerce and food delivery subsidy wars. However, as the AI narrative enters its second half, the proliferation of AI applications and accelerated commercialization of AI cloud services are expected to restore the valuation of Hong Kong internet stocks to a “tech” attribute, increasing growth flexibility for the index.

In late March, heavyweight stocks like Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan, and Xiaomi will release earnings. Can Hong Kong tech stocks establish a right-side reversal based on this? It’s important to monitor both earnings performance and market feedback. In the short term, market trends are influenced by liquidity and risk appetite, but in the medium to long term, the Hang Seng Internet is at a starting point driven by “fundamental repair + AI capability upgrades + C-end product volume,” with the latest PE-TTM at 21x, within the top 20% of the past decade. The maximum drawdown in the past five months was -27%. It has multiple advantages such as “low valuation + high resilience,” making it more about focusing on medium- and long-term value rather than guessing bottoms, and buying on dips.

Investment tools to watch include the A-share-listed Hang Seng Internet ETF (513330.SH) and its OTC connection fund Class C shares (013172.OF). The combined holdings of Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu account for 36%, the highest among all BAT stocks. The Hang Seng Internet ETF is listed on mainland Chinese stock exchanges, allowing A-share investors to participate directly.

Daily Economic News