Global investors, including US funds with long-only strategies, are returning to the Chinese mainland to reassess local companies, a shift that has helped drive a twofold surge in liquidity in Hong Kong’s stock market while highlighting the city’s ability to connect global investors to China’s growing innovative powers.
Shane Zhang, head of Asia-Pacific investment banking at Morgan Stanley, said his firm had arranged meetings in China for a number of senior US long-only investors in the last few months, giving them a chance to “rediscover that sense of innovation and their broader impact”.
“This is a good starting point for global investors with longer-term investment horizons to rebuild their exposure in Chinese companies,” he said.
Daily trading volume on the city’s bourse averaged about US$31.9 billion in the first eight months of this year, more than doubling from a year earlier, according to exchange data.
