Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Hong Kong has experienced three years of recession within the last four. The ripple effect is painful with a persistent fiscal deficit. The recent budget does not change the trend as the fiscal account (excluding bond issuance) will remain in deficit at 3.9% of GDP in FY 23/24, despite an improvement from -7.3% of GDP in FY 22/23. Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves also depleted from…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Although the chorus of voices saying Hong Kong stocks would bottom out grew louder in the last few months of 2021, we held the view that policy risk could linger for further underperformance. Indeed, the Hang Seng Index ended the year with -14%, which was a clear divergence versus other major markets. The question now is whether this gloomy picture on Hong Kong equities might…
Shaun Riordan │ The Hong Kong protests have now entered their tenth week. Over the weekend protestors are reported to have fought running battles with the police in the Metro system. The police have had recourse to batons and tear gas. The dangers for Hong Kong´s political and economic future are clear. But the dangers are much broader than Hong Kong. Markets should be watching carefully.
UBS | The launch of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect program this year was recently confirmed by top Chinese government officials. We estimate that about 505/218 Shenzhen/HK stocks could be introduced into the existing Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, leading to over 70% of the A-share market cap and 84% of the Hong Kong market cap to be mutually open.
The British government has failed to condemn China for breaking its promise of greater democracy in Hong Kong. If you were told the Chinese government — an unelected, one-party state — will decide who you can vote for, what would your response be? Not only would you likely object, you would expect others, especially democracies, to loudly condemn the idea. But Britain has done just the opposite to the people of Hong Kong, when it failed to call China out for breaking its promise of greater democracy for the island territory.