HK Equities Out-Perform, Biotech Recovers After Thursday's Sell Off

Hong Kong and China equities are mixed today with HK markets out-performing. Comments from Powell on Thursday regarding potential rate cuts this year, though not new or unexpected, have contributed to the market's upward momentum.

• Hong Kong equity markets show positive gains today, with biotech names reversing some losses from Thursday, marking a 1.94% increase and emerging as the top-performing sector. The Mainland Property Index is up by 0.50%, the HSTech Index records a 1.00% gain, and the HSI experiences a 1.10% increase. China equities are underperforming the moves higher by HK markets and now trade mixed with the CSI300 down 0.15% while the CSI1000 is up 0.35%
• China Northbound flows were -2.1b yuan on Thursday, with the 5-day average to -2.88b, while the 20-day average sits at 2.31b yuan. While investors pulled $109m from the 2nd largest Chinese focused ETF (iShares MSCI China ETF) on Thursday, the most since Dec 22nd.
• In the property space, China Vanke continues to face pressure as several major insurers seek to protect their privately issues debt over concerns of potential liquidity stress. Chinese property developer Kaisa Group will be in court this morning over a wind-up petition. While Hong Kong's recently scrapping of property curbs have caused a spike in property sales with Henderson Land Development selling 190 of 208 apartments with the units receiving over 7,300 applications meaning they were oversubscribed by 34 times.
• Looking ahead China has CPI & PPI due out on Saturday, while the NPC meeting continues