Hong Kong Stocks Tumble Over Ugly Chinese Housing Data; EV Makers Plunge After Tesla's Earnings Disappointment

Shares in Hong Kong and China dropped Thursday on a slew of bad economic data from the housing and financial sector.

The Hang Seng Index fell 2.5% to 17,295.89 points and China’s CSI 300 index ended the day 2.1% lower at 3,533.54 points.

September’s housing prices in China fell the fastest they have in 11 months, down 0.3% across 70 mainland cities and 0.48% lower for secondary market sales, representing the largest one month drop in secondary sales recorded since 2014. The value of the real estate sector overall shrunk by 2.7% in the third quarter.

Chinese-language daily Caixin reported that investment in the Chinese housing sector plunged 9.1% in the first 9 months of this year, representing an even bigger drop than for the first 8 months.

The data comes on the back of the first default on US dollar bonds a day earlier by Country Garden Holdings Limited CTRYF, China’s largest property firm by developments. Country Gardens has said that it does not think it will be able to maintain timely interest payments on its $10 billion of junk bonds, which are trading under 4 cents on the dollar now.

Country Garden denied a rumor going around trading desks Thursday morning that its founder Yeung Kwok-keung and chairman Hang Huiyang, who is Yeung’s daughter, had fled China after the company missed the interest payment Wednesday. The company threatened to take legal action against rumor-mongers.

Country Garden was around 3% lower, while China Evergrande Group EGRNQ was down nearly 4% and Sunac China Holdings Limited SNCNQ tumbled 4.6% by the end of the day’s trading in Hong Kong.

The Chinese government is in the midst of attempting to avert what looks to be a full-blown credit crunch in its housing market, even as its retail and manufacturing industries are starting to pick up.

Consumption is on the rise again after a two-year rout created by an intensive series of Covid-19 lockdowns. Output in the leisure sector was up 12.7% while IT and software was also rebounding strongly by 10.3%. Manufacturing activity rose 4.5%. That helped Wednesday’s better-than-expected GDP data which prompted revised-higher forecasts Thursday for China’s GDP by UBS Group AG UBS and JP Morgan & Chase Co JPM to 5.2% for this year.

Still, consumer names were marred by the larger credit rout that is weighing on investor’s minds Thursday. Alibaba Group Holdings Limited BABA and Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY were both off 2.3% by the end of trading while JD.com Inc JD continued to fall harder by 5% after downgrades earlier this week.

Regional banks face a 2.2 trillion RMB ($301 billion) capital shortfall as Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGVFs) struggle to repay portions of their borrowing due to rapidly-slowing land sales.

LGVFs are a mechanism by which local governments in China attempted to provide a cushion to plunging land prices in 2022, and the $9 trillion they have under management now looks to be under threat, according to S&P Global Ratings.  

Three banks in particular, Bank of Hangzhou Co, Bank of Chonquing Co and Bank of Chengdu Co are the most exposed to potential LGVF defaults, which analysts expect to be as high as 74% now according to Bloomberg. The defaults are on the way due to a lack of demand for land and new housing in provinces across China, which puts constraints on the cashflows of the government financing vehicles.  

Bank of China Ltd. BACHF and China Construction Bank Ltd CICHF both fell 2% while Hong Kong lender HSBC plc HSBC was down 2.4% on the day.

New data from the US Treasury Department Wednesday showed that Chinese investors offloaded around $21 billion of US securities in August, which were mostly sales of Treasury Bills, the highest amount in four years. Chinese investors sold an all-time record of $5.1 billion of US equities in August.  

Maquarie Group Ltd. MQBKY analyst Gareth Berry said the large sale of US securities was down to China liquidating US dollar assets in the event it needed to intervene in its currency markets.

The Chinese yuan renminbi is currently trading at 7.32 RMB vs. the dollar, its lowest level in 15 years. Low domestic currency prices vs the dollar is good for companies that derive a big chunk of their income from overseas exports but bad for imports which China is increasingly reliant on.

EV makers plunged on headwinds from an upside earnings surprise announcement by BYD Company Limited BYDDF Tuesday night in addition to disappointing earnings for Q3 from Tesla Inc TSLA.

Wednesday night, Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.66 vs. $0.73 expected and revenue of $23.35 billion vs. $24.1 billion expected, citing margin pressures associated with developing cheaper vehicle in the face of rising competition. CEO Elon Musk also said the company would face “enormous challenges” in delivering volume sales of its Cybertruck.

Days earlier, Tesla’s main Chinese rival BYD said that it would report record sales and income for Q3 after increasing its global market presence.

Nio Inc NIO and XPeng Inc. XPEV both dropped over 8%, while Li Auto Inc LI was 4% lower on the day. BYD gave back 3% after strong performance the day before on the back of its pre-earnings statement.