Hong Kong stocks rally as chip-related, NEV sectors fuel optimism

Hong Kong stocks rose on Friday, driven by strong gains in chip-related and new energy vehicle (NEV) shares.

Hong Kong equities notched gains on the day, with the Hang Seng Index climbing 0.86 percent to settle at 25,606.03 points. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index advanced 0.89 percent to 8,550.87 points, while the Hang Seng Tech Index posted a stronger 2.11 percent rise, closing at 4,869.57 points.

Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN), recapped Hong Kong's market performance.

"Hong Kong markets were trading strongly also largely thanks to tech stocks. The Hang Seng was up 0.9 percent, too. The really big winner was Lenovo, which surged almost 20 percent after revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was up 27 percent year on year. And net profit attributable to shareholders -- this is according to the London Stock Exchange Group -- jumped almost 480 percent. Now part of the story here is the company's moves to cope with a chip shortage for PCs at the moment. As we've talked about before, a lot of suppliers have pivoted to making chips for AI wherever possible, and that's created shortages for everything else, particularly for memory chips. Lenovo has also put PC prices up to try and cope with that," said Pope.

"And elsewhere on the markets, on Monday, we discussed the markets' lukewarm reception to Li Auto's updated SUV. But today investors really cheered rival Xpeng's latest offering -- its own upmarket SUV GX. Now this one is a more significant shift for Xpeng. It's away from cheaper cars and into the premium segment of the market. And Xpeng shares added 3.3 percent off the back of that," he said.

Hong Kong stocks rally as chip-related, NEV sectors fuel optimism

Tokyo stocks rose Friday, with the benchmark Nikkei stock index ending at a fresh record high, buoyed by optimism over a settlement in the Middle East conflict.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended up 1,654.93 points, or 2.68 percent, from Thursday at 63,339.07.

The broader Topix index, meanwhile, finished 38.65 points, or 1.00 percent, higher at 3,892.46.

"There was some optimistic trade around the latest U.S.-Iran talks, but this optimism seems to be based on the fact that things aren't getting drastically worse in the region rather than the situation improving significantly," Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN), recapped the day's developments.

"This optimism was most strongly on display, I think, in Tokyo today, where the Nikkei rose 2.7 percent with hopes for some relief on oil prices and other currently scarce materials. It's not just oil that is not getting out of the region. As we know, it's other petrochemicals and things like helium as well. The general performance was pretty strong. Metals producers were doing fairly well in Tokyo, but in Japan as well, the market is very much focused on AI stocks. And today, the gains were strong for SoftBank -- it was up almost 12 percent after a bit of a battering earlier in the week. And that SoftBank gain contributed nearly a third to the Nikkei's overall gains on Friday," said Pope.

Tokyo stocks end higher as U.S.-Iran talks fuel cautious optimism