Hong Kong Equity Strategy: From sentiment drag to accumulation window

Research evidence excerpt

Hong Kong Equity Strategy: From sentiment drag to accumulation window

fied, institutional and globally sourced investor base. That said, the

latest outbound investment regulation (Doc 837) will likely impose

compliance friction on the margin: first, the explicit inclusion of individuals

under the new framework raises enforcement risk around Mainland residents’

outbound capital activities. Second, at the corporate/institution level, higher

transparency requirements, especially the beneficial-ownership look-

through, could moderate future net fund inflows, particularly for offshore

entities controlled by Mainland residents. To gauge the size of the policy

impact, we focus on incremental fund inflows as the new ODI regulation is

not retrospective. In 2025, mainland Chinese-owned net fund inflows were

~HK$0.19tn, or ~US$24bn. Overall, we would frame the policy risk as a

flow-quality and compliance-friction issue rather than a structural threat to

Hong Kong’s AM & PWM business, given the industry’s diversified global

investor base, institutional orientation and continued leverage to global equity

and AI-led wealth creation.

• Fundamental support intact, but 1H26 results may not be a major EPS-

upgrade catalyst. MXHK’s fundamental support remains intact and tactical

signals continue to point to a constructive uptrend, but we do not expect the

upcoming 1H26 results season to drive notable index-level consensus EPS

revisions. At the macro and earnings levels, MXHK has historically moved in

the same direction as Hong Kong GDP revisions and forward EPS revisions,

reflecting the linkage between top-down growth momentum and bottom-up

earnings expectations (Figure 1 & Figure 2). Encouragingly, since mid-May,

MXHK’s FTM EPS has still edged up 0.2%, despite the 18% consensus cut