Recently, market concerns about regulatory policies have continued, with Hong Kong technology stocks under pressure. Meituan, Tencent, BABA and others fell sharply again after a brief rebound.

In contrast, U. S. technology stocks are still very strong after many years. Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc-CL C all set record highs this week. By comparison, will Hong Kong technology stocks replicate the trend of US technology stocks for a long time? Has it fallen out of the "gold pit" now?

The share prices of Internet leaders such as Meituan, JD.com and Tencent have fluctuated downwards since the beginning of February this year, accompanied by the continuous advance of the domestic anti-monopoly wave:

• The antitrust guide in November 2020 solicited opinions from the public

• Then, on February 7, 2021, the antitrust guide in the field of platform economy was issued.

• The results of administrative penalties for the illegal implementation of operator concentration cases were announced in April and July, strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing disorderly expansion of capital were repeatedly mentioned by high-level and government meetings, and the expectation that domestic anti-monopoly measures will continue to increase in the future is expected to be continuously strengthened.

Everbright Securities said that from overseas experience, antitrust measures are not the main factor affecting the core competitiveness of US stock science and technology companies. For domestic Internet leading stocks, short-term trading is under pressure, but the core competitiveness has not changed.

First of all, the antitrust fine is only an one-off profit or loss, which has a limited impact on head technology companies that hold large amounts of cash and have relatively stable and large cash inflows.

Secondly, the antitrust measures involving enterprise or business split may cause a certain blow to the core business of the leading enterprises, but it is difficult to implement. As a major measure in excess of fines, a "business split" has also been repeatedly proposed in antitrust actions against Microsoft Corp, Alphabet Inc-CL C and Facebook Inc, but the actual split is still very rare. Only Microsoft Corp was ruled by the court to split up and ended in reconciliation.

At the transaction level, from the historical performance of Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc-CL C, it is usually difficult for stock prices to have excess returns in a period of intensive antitrust charges. Microsoft Corp successfully expanded the cloud computing business after 2013, reopening the upward channel of the stock price.

Everbright Securities believes that the fundamentals of domestic Internet companies have not deteriorated, and the dominant position of Internet leading companies will be further consolidated in the future or with the standardized development, innovative development, and international development of the platform economy. In the long run, the investment value of Internet giants is prominent.

The agency also said that after previous adjustments, the current Internet leader has significantly lower valuations and more cost-effective than other sectors. Perhaps now will be the right time to invest in such leaders for a long time.