Golden Finance News | The Hang Seng Index closed at 17,391 on Wednesday (21st), down 120 points or 0.69%. The market's total trading volume was 93.8 billion yuan. The CSI fell by 53 points or 0.87% to 6,141. The tech index fell by over 3% in the morning, closing down 63 points or 1.8% at 3,434. Walmart is reported to be selling its stake in JD.com (09618), and JD.com responded in the afternoon expressing confidence in future cooperation with Walmart, narrowing its closing drop to 8.7% at 102.4 yuan, making it the worst-performing blue-chip stock. After Kuaishou (01024) announced its performance, it had its target price lowered by several major banks. The market is concerned that its e-commerce sales on the platform are lower than expected, closing down by 9.9%.
The Dow Jones closed at 40,890 points on Wednesday (21st), up 55 points or 0.14%. The S&P rose by 0.42% to 5,620 points; the Nasdaq fluctuated up by 0.57%, standing at 17,918 points; the Hang Seng Tech Index, reflecting the performance of Chinese concept stocks, soared by 2.39%. European stocks remained stable, with the UK, France, and Germany stocks rising by 0.12%, 0.52%, and 0.5% respectively. Among heavyweight stocks, Amazon and Meta saw their stock prices rise by 0.7% and 1.6% respectively, Intel surged by 2%, being the largest gainer among Dow components, NVIDIA climbed 1%, and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) rose by 0.9%. Bank stocks were generally under pressure, with American Express falling by 2.7%, ranking as the worst-performing Dow component, and Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup both retracting by about 1.2%. In the Asia-Pacific stock market this morning (22nd), the Nikkei 225 index is currently at 38,269 points, up by 317 points or 0.84%. The KOSPI index in South Korea is currently at 2,702 points, up by 1 point or 0.05%. The Hong Kong stock market was soft and lacked upward momentum.
Market Focus: China Telecom (00728)
China Telecom announced its mid-year performance for 2024, with the group achieving revenue of 266 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 2.8%. Service revenue reached 246.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%, consistently outperforming industry growth; net profit for the same period was 21.8 billion yuan, up by 8.2% year-on-year, with non-GAAP net profit at 21.7 billion yuan, a 6.0% year-on-year increase, and basic earnings per share at 0.24 yuan. Capital expenditure was 47.2 billion yuan. In the first half of the year, China Telecom's mobile communication service revenue reached 105.2 billion yuan, an increase of 3.6% year-on-year. Fixed-line and smart home service revenue reached 64 billion yuan, up by 3.2% year-on-year. Additionally, China Telecom's industry digital revenue reached 73.7 billion yuan, a 7.2% year-on-year increase, accounting for 30.0% of service revenue, up by 0.8 percentage points year-on-year. Tianyi Cloud revenue reached 55.2 billion yuan, up by 20.4% year-on-year. In the construction of technology-based enterprises, China Telecom continues to play a leading role in technological innovation. In the first half of the year, research and development expenses for China Telecom increased by 12.5% year-on-year, focusing on accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries and the construction of core research teams with top talent, with a 15.3% increase in the scale of R&D personnel compared to the end of last year. Artificial intelligence has been a focus of attention for telecom operators in recent years, and the group is steering its development towards artificial intelligence, enhancing the integration of capabilities in various fields, continuing to enrich the product system of the Xinxingchanye model series, which helps the group reduce costs and increase efficiency. Of note, in terms of shareholder returns, starting from 2024, the group plans to further increase the dividend payout ratio to over 75% in the next three years.
Target price $5.2, stop loss price $4.2.
(The author is a licensed person of the China Securities Regulatory Commission and does not hold any of the above stocks.)
Author: Dr. Tang Shengxing, Chairman of the Hong Kong Stock Analysts Association.