China Market-Wise: IPO Share Unlocking – Record High with Stock Implications

Research evidence excerpt

China Market-Wise: IPO Share Unlocking – Record High with Stock Implications

Idea

July 16, 2026 09:00 PM GMT

Morgan Stanley Asia Limited+MChina Market-Wise | Asia Pacific Laura Wang

Equity Strategist

IPO Share Unlocking – Record Laura.Wang@morganstanley.comVicky Wu +852 2848-6853

Vicky.Wu@morganstanley.com +852 3963-3928

High with Stock Implications Chloe Liu

Chloe.Liu1@morganstanley.com +852 2848-5497

We highlight the July and September share unlockings as short-

term liquidity events, likely with limited index impact. We

reiterate that now is a good time to add back Hong Kong

exposure. Stock-level price impact is more accentuated; we

provide 32 stocks to watch.

In 2H26, HK equities face one of the largest lockup expiry cycles in recent years:

~HK$887bn of market value is scheduled to become tradable in 2H26 – i.e., ~2% of

total market capitalization and 3.4% of free-float market capitalization. September

2026 and July 2026 rank as the first- and second-largest unlocking months,

respectively, in the past five years. Notably, in July, ~HK$14.4bn of market value has

already been unlocked, including several high-profile stocks that have attracted high

market attention, such as Knowledge Atlas (2513.HK), Biren Technology (6082.HK),

and GigaDevice (3986.HK).

Unlocking pressure is highly concentrated by sector: Information Technology and

Materials account for roughly two-thirds of total upcoming value to be unlocked.

Materials appears particularly significant from a free-float ratio perspective –

cumulative unlockings represent about 30% of sector free-float market cap.

Historical evidence shows stock-level price impact tends to be more accentuated

than market index-level impact: Our regression analysis suggests that unlocking