Golden News | The Hang Seng Index closed at 24,177 on Tuesday (24th), up 487 points or 2.1%. The total market turnover for the day was 240.4 billion yuan. The National Index rose by 1.9%, closing at 8,760; the Tech Index increased by 2.1%, reaching 5,297. The situation of the Middle East War is expected to ease, with the market estimating a drop in freight rates, putting pressure on shipping stocks. COSCO Shipping Holdings (01919) fell by 0.4%, closing at 13.86 yuan; oil service stocks faced heavy selling pressure, with Honghua (00196) dropping by 4.3%, closing at 0.201 yuan;
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 43,089 points on Tuesday (24th), up 507 points or 1.19%; the S&P 500 index rose by 1.11%, closing at 6,092 points; the NASDAQ increased by 1.43%, closing at 19,912 points; the NASDAQ 100 rose by 1.53%, closing at 22,190 points. Among the major stocks, Nvidia and Amazon saw their prices close up 2.6% and 2.1% respectively, but Tesla fell by 2.4%, and Apple lost 0.6%. Airline stocks continued to rebound, with American Airlines' stock price rising by 4.3%, and United Airlines and Delta Air Lines also rising by 2.7%. Chevron fell by 2.3%, being the stock with the largest loss in the Dow; Salesforce increased by 3%, making it the best-performing stock in the Dow. The Asia-Pacific stock market opened mixed on the morning of the 25th, with the Nikkei 225 Index currently at 38,797 points, up 6 points or 0.02%. The South Korean Composite Index is at 3,117 points, up 14 points or 0.46%. As the situation in the Middle East eases, Hong Kong stocks fluctuate within a range of a thousand points.
Market focus: Bank Of Communications (03328)
As one of the first participating banks in the "Cross-border Payment Link," Bank Of Communications will benefit from the facilitation measures for small-scale cross-border remittances between the two regions. The Q1 2025 performance showed a robust operating trend, with total assets reaching 15,288.895 billion yuan, an increase of 2.61% year-on-year; net income was 25.372 billion yuan, up 1.54% year-on-year. Core business performance varied, with net interest income at 42.604 billion yuan, an increase of 2.52% year-on-year, and a net interest margin of 1.23%, down 4 basis points year-on-year; net fee and commission income was 11.594 billion yuan, down 2.40% year-on-year, mainly due to pressures from custody and investment banking businesses. Credit deployment has intensified, with customer loan balances increasing by 4.24% to 8,918.134 billion yuan, with corporate loans rising by 5.19%. Asset quality remains stable, with a non-performing loan ratio of 1.30%, down 0.01 percentage points compared to the end of last year, and a provision coverage ratio of 200.41%. The deposit structure indicates a trend towards increasing term deposits, with their proportion rising by 1.84 percentage points to 66.82%. With the implementation of financial opening policies such as the "Cross-border Payment Link," Bank Of Communications is expected to seize opportunities during the banking sector recovery cycle, leveraging its advantages in cross-border business and stable asset-liability structure. Short-term attention is on the stabilization of interest margins and the recovery of middle-income business, while in the medium to long term, there is a bullish outlook on its development potential in wealth management and cross-border finance, combined with a prudent dividend policy, making the investment value gradually apparent. Target Price $9, stop loss price $6.9.
(The author does not hold the aforementioned shares)
Author: Dr. Deng Shengxing, Chairman of the Hong Kong Stock Analysts Association.
