Apr 24, 2026, 12:06 GMT+7
By Summer Zhen
Reuters - China and Hong Kong stocks fell on Friday, as escalating Middle East tensions dented investor sentiment, while DeepSeek's release of a new artificial intelligence model lifted semiconductor shares.
** The blue-chip CSI300 Indexdropped 0.85% by the lunch break, while the Shanghai Composite Indexlost 0.58%.
** Hong Kong benchmark Hang Sengdipped 0.2%; while Hang Seng Tech rose 0.35%.
** Stalled U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks dampened investor confidence. Iran demonstrated its control over ?the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with video of its commandos storming a huge cargo ship.
** Also weighing on the sentiment, the White House accused China of stealing U.S. AI labs' intellectual property on an industrial scale, putting pressure on the country ahead of a summit between U.S. and Chinese leaders next month.
** Telecommunications, cloud computing and defencestocks led the decline in China, down 5.6%, 4.5% and 2.5% respectively.
** Risk off takes hold once again amid continued Middle East concerns and a stronger U.S. dollar, KraneShares analysts said in a note.
** Meanwhile, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek launched a preview of its highly anticipated new model, the V4, on Friday.
** DeepSeek said the latest model outperforms other open-source models in world-knowledge benchmarks.
** Semiconductor and chip shares rose as the market expects the new model to run on homegrown chips.
** CSI Semiconductor Industry index rose 1.6%.
** In Hong Kong, Huahong Semiconductorand SMIC jumped 13% and 9% respectively.
** The smaller Shenzhen indexwas down 1.19%, the start-up board ChiNext Composite indexwas weaker by 2.2% and Shanghai's tech-focused

STAR

50 indexwas up 1.8%.
** Around the region, MSCI 's Asia ex-Japan stock index was firmer by 0.32% while Japan's Nikkei indexwas up 0.66%.

Sumber : Reuters