Hong Kong stocks closed (07.20) | The Hang Seng Index closed up 2.36% and stood at 20,000, and the general rise in energy and innovative drug concepts showed impressive results
The Zhitong Finance App learned that the three major indices of Hong Kong stocks fluctuated higher throughout the day. The Hang Seng Index rose more than 2% to reach the 255,000 mark, and the Hengke Index once surged more than 3%. At the close, the Hang Seng Index rose 2.36% or 580.81 points to 25143.05 points, with a full-day turnover of HK$306.413 billion; the Hang Seng State-owned Enterprises Index rose 3.01% to 8381.90 points; and the Hang Seng Technology Index rose 2.79% to 4752.15 points.
Huatai Securities believes that in the future, since hedging positions have been closed halfway and short selling capital has begun to accumulate again, considering that A shares and Korean stocks may gradually confirm the bottom since then, and the Hong Kong stock sentiment index is gradually recovering, the capital-driven rebound may be sustainable on a monthly basis, but the core element of the long-term reversal may still be the restoration of fundamentals after the end of the performance period.
Blue-chip stock performance
Alibaba-W (09988) performed well. At the close, it rose 3.73% to HK$116.8, with a turnover of HK$14.728 billion, contributing 66.88 points to the Hang Seng Index. Alibaba recently released a preview version of its flagship model, the Qwen3.8 Max. The parameter scale is as high as 2.4 trillion yuan. Officially, it is positioned as “one of the most powerful models today, comparable to leading cutting-edge AI models”, second only to Anthropic's Fable 5 globally. At the same time, Ali promised to release full model weights “soon”.
In terms of other blue-chip stocks, CNOOC (00883) rose 5.19% to HK$23.9, contributing 28.19 points; Shiyao Group (01093) rose 4.94% to HK$8.5, contributing 4.97 points to the Hang Seng Index; Electric Energy Industry (00006) fell 1.67% to HK$58.8, dragging down the Hang Seng Index by 2.13 points; Changhe (00001) fell 0.42% to HK$70.5, dragging down the Hang Seng Index by 1.23 points.
Popular sector aspects
On the market, large tech stocks generally rose today. Kuaishou rose more than 4%, and Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan rose more than 3%. A number of central enterprises announced plans to increase their holdings. Dividend stocks rose the most. The US-Iran conflict boosted oil prices, and oil and coal stocks rose significantly. In the first half of the year, 38 innovative drugs were approved for the market, and the innovative drug concept became active again; the peak summer fueled an explosion in demand, and the rise in power stocks expanded; consumer stocks and construction machinery stocks rose. On the other side, three departments have resumed levying consumption taxes on some batteries, and the lithium battery concept trend is diverging. The dispute over the quality of China Innovation Air Sinking Battery fell by nearly 13% this morning.
1. Dividend stocks such as coal and insurance registered the highest gains. At the close, Yankuang Energy (01171) rose 9.02% to HK$11.84; China Coal Energy (01898) rose 8.22% to HK$10.8; CNOOC (00883) rose 5.19% to HK$23.9; and Xinhua Insurance (01336) rose 6.06% to HK$47.26.
Following the announcement of large holdings by two central enterprises, China Chengtong and China Guoxin, on the evening of July 19, this morning, the five listed central enterprises of China Shenhua, CRRC, China Aluminum, Guodian Nanrui, and China Coal Energy, once again made a collective move to send a positive signal to the market through increased holdings, repurchases, and dividends. Among them, China Aluminum said that the controlling shareholder plans to increase its holdings of A shares and H shares by 1 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan; CRRC's controlling shareholder plans to increase its holdings by 150 million yuan to 300 million yuan; and the controlling shareholder of China Coal Energy plans to increase its holdings by 50 million yuan to 100 million yuan.
It is worth noting that the US-Iran conflict continued to push up oil prices, and oil owners once returned to $90. On July 20, retaliation between the US and Iran continued to escalate. The US Central Command said that the US military has launched a new round of air strikes against Iran. This is the ninth night in a row that it has launched a military operation against Iran. Also, according to news from Iran on the 19th, sources said that the traffic volume of the Strait of Hormuz has dropped to zero, and as long as the US continues its provocative acts, the strait will remain closed. Open Source Securities pointed out that the combination of geography catalyzes a rebound in thermal coal during the peak season and places emphasis on coking coal safety supervision and diffusion supply inflection points.
2. Innovative drug concepts are once again active. At the close, Rongchang Biotech (09995) rose 9.84% to HK$83.75; Conoa-B (02162) rose 6.8% to HK$87.2; and Health Biotech (09926) rose 5.66% to HK$93.35.
Tao Qing, press spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau, said at the press conference of the State Information Office that in the first half of this year, 38 innovative drugs were approved for marketing, of which 31 were made in China, accounting for more than 80%. It is worth noting that foreign technology licensing for innovative drugs has reached a new high. The total transaction volume in the first half of this year exceeded 100 billion US dollars, fully demonstrating that the quality of innovation in China's pharmaceutical industry has achieved a systematic leap forward. Liang Furui, fund manager of Great Wall Pharmaceutical Industry, believes that the current inflow of capital into innovative drugs is mainly supported by several key points in the second half of the year, including the intensive disclosure period of semi-annual reports from July to August, the WCLC and ESMO meetings from September to October, the implementation of health insurance/commercial insurance catalogue adjustments from October to November, and the peak season for ASH+ BD before Christmas in December.
3. Electricity stocks were generally higher. At the close, Datang Power (00991) rose 5.93% to HK$2.5; Longyuan Electric (00916) rose 4.73% to HK$5.54; Huaneng International (00902) rose 4.66% to HK$6.06; and China Electric Power (02380) rose 4.38% to HK$2.86.
On July 14, the country's electricity consumption reached a new high of 1,551 billion kilowatts, and the electricity consumption load of power grids in central China and several provinces such as Jinan, Sichuan, Hubei, and Hunan broke through historical peaks. The National Development and Reform Commission determined that the country's maximum electricity consumption load will reach about 1.6 billion kilowatts this summer, an increase of about 90 million kilowatts over last year. Guoyuan International said that July-August is still a critical stage for the traditional peak of summer. If the hot weather continues, residents' cooling load and commercial load are still expected to pick up; at the same time, the boom in industrial production, charging and switching, and data centers will still provide bottom support. The power sector boom judgment should still be based on the main line of “stable total volume and structural upgrade”.
4. The trend of lithium battery concepts is divided. At the close, China Airlines (03931) fell 7.95% to HK$17.36; Tianqi Lithium (09696) fell 4.87% to HK$30.88; Ganfeng Lithium (01772) fell 4.55% to HK$36.1; and Ningde Times (03750) rose 1.98% to HK$618.5.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued a notice that from September 1, 2026, consumption tax will be levied on mature battery products such as lithium batteries and lithium-ion batteries at a rate of 2%, rising to 4% from September 1, 2027; at the same time, phased tax exemption will be implemented for emerging technologies such as sodium-ion batteries and solid-state batteries until the end of 2028. This means that the consumption tax exemption policy for lithium batteries used in electric vehicles, which has been in place for more than ten years, has been officially withdrawn. Goldman Sachs believes that the impact of this policy adjustment on industry leaders is manageable, but it will pose a major challenge to battery manufacturers that are mainly in the mainland market and have low profitability, which is expected to further drive market share concentration.
Popular exotic stocks
China Software International (00354) surged in the afternoon. At the close, it was up 22.97% to HK$3.64.
China Software International announced at noon that recently, the company has officially signed a token sharing and joint innovation cooperation agreement with Dark Side of the Moon for the “Moon Landing Program”, which is a key strategic step for the company's transformation towards high-professional value token operators. Based on their respective core strengths, the two sides will carry out comprehensive in-depth cooperation on Agentic AI in the field of enterprise services to jointly open up the last mile of commercialization of the big model.
Xunce (03317) climbed significantly. At the close, it was up 18.22% to HK$107.7.
Xunce announced that it has formally reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with Qingdao Xinchen Kechuang Industrial Co., Ltd., the parent company of Hongtai Fund. This cooperation is not a link between Quick Action and the regular single-point business of investment institutions. Instead, its core product TokenOS is an iconic strategic transition from the underlying data infrastructure to an operating system for all private equity fund business scenarios. It also creates a complete and implementable benchmark sample for the domestic equity investment industry to implement AI-native and Token-native digital systems.
Changfei Optical Fiber Cable (06869) is strong throughout the day. At the close, it was up 8.13% to HK$141 at the close.
At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference on “A New Paradigm for Optical Computing+Optical Interconnection AI Infrastructure” held on July 18, Zhuang Dan, executive director and president of Changfei Optical Fiber, said that the polarized fiber market is currently very popular. Demand for polarized fiber is expected to increase by 10 times and 20 times in the next year or two, and the company is working with partners in the industry chain to expand production of polarized fiber.
Great Wall Motor (02333) stock price rebounded. At the close, it was up 5.2% to HK$9.11.
Great Wall Motor announced that the “new species in the big family square box” Great Wall H10 won an order for 2,615 units within 12 hours. According to reports, the new car launched a total of 4 models with two seat layouts, five- and six-seater, with a pre-sale price of 21.8-239,800 yuan. In addition, Great Wall Motor's new tank 300 was officially launched. A total of 5 models were launched, covering various power forms of gasoline, diesel, and plug-in hybrid, with a price range of 19.98-259,800 yuan.