(Bloomberg) — A gauge of Chinese technology shares traded in Hong Kong jumped more than 5% on Friday, as a slew of upbeat earnings boosted optimism toward the sector.
The Hang Seng Tech Index soared as much as 5.3% to the highest since early 2022. Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. surged almost 14% after the Chinese e-commerce giant reported sales that beat estimates. Bilibili Inc. shares also climbed on better-than-expected results, while Lenovo Group Ltd. rose after reporting revenue growth that exceeded estimates due to demand for AI computing infrastructure.
Chinese technology shares have been on a tear in recent weeks as local AI startup DeepSeek’s breakthrough prompted investors to re-evaluate the nation’s leading internet companies. The Hang Seng Tech Index entered a bull market earlier this month on enthusiasm over DeepSeek’s AI model. More recently, President Xi Jinping’s recent meeting with Alibaba founder Jack Ma and other tech executives also spurred optimism that Beijing is taking a more conciliatory tone in fostering the sector’s development.
The broader Hang Seng China Enterprises Index was up more than 3%.
Alibaba’s results are partly fueling the market’s Friday rally, said Bo Pei, an equity research analyst at US Tiger Securities. Xi’s meeting with Ma is an “indicator of the government’s evolving stance toward private enterprises and capital markets. It also has implications for whether foreign long-only funds will regain confidence in Chinese equities.”
Alibaba’s shares are up 66% in Hong Kong this year. Its ADRs jumped 8.1% on Thursday after it reported sales that beat estimates, driven by the core Taobao and Tmall business as well as the closely watched cloud unit.
(An earlier version was corrected to fix the spelling of the HSCEI index.)
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