Alibaba, Nio Soar Over 7%: Powell's Speech Fires Up Hang Seng After Strong Wall Street Close

Hong Kong stocks soared on Thursday with the benchmark Hang Seng opening 2.47% higher following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech that indicated the central bank may slow the pace of rate hikes as soon as December. EV stocks surged, with Xpeng shares rising over 21%, playing catch-up with its U.S. stock movement from the day before. Nio shares rose over 13% while Li Auto shares soared over 9% in morning trade. Alibaba and Baidu stocks rose over 7%.

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Macro News: Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who spearheaded the nation for a decade of rapid economic growth following the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, died on Wednesday at the age of 96, reported Reuters.

China’s manufacturing hub of Guangzhou removed lockdowns in most parts of the city, including those hit by rioting, and has introduced targeted curbs, reported Bloomberg.

Company News: Tencent has said it will launch new cloud computing products targeted at overseas markets as it looks for new avenues for growth, reported CNBC.

Xpeng saw its net loss widen to RMB 2.38 billion ($0.33 billion) for the third quarter of 2022, compared with RMB1.59 billion for the same period of 2021.

Top Gainers and Losers: Alibaba Health Information Technology Limited and Alibaba Group Holding Limited were the top gainers among Hang Seng constituents, having risen over 8% each. China Resources Land Limited and Hang Lung Properties Limited were among the top losers, having shed over 2% and 1%, respectively.

Global News: U.S. futures traded in the green on Thursday morning Asia session. The Dow Jones futures were trading flat while the Nasdaq futures gained 0.1%. The S&P 500 futures were trading higher by 0.13%.

Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, Australia’s ASX 200 was up 0.94%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded 1.05% higher while China’s Shanghai Composite index gained 1.22%. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.53%.

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