Wealthy investors remain undeterred by recent stock market turmoil triggered by the US tariff policy, viewing it instead as the “time to buy” Hong Kong and mainland Chinese stocks, according to a senior executive at Standard Chartered Bank.
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“Our private banking and affluent clients have been very active in their investments over the past month,” Raymond Ang, global head of private banking and affluent clients for Greater China and North Asia, said in a recent interview with the Post.
These investors had diversified their portfolios and focused more on shorter-term assets with high liquidity to navigate the expected market volatility during tariff negotiations, Ang said. They have redeemed long-term fund holdings tied to macroeconomic themes or sector-specific funds and reallocated their capital into Hong Kong and mainland stocks, as well as high-quality government bonds.
“The stock market had a deep correction in early April due to the tariff [war] between the US and China,” Ang said. “Our clients said ‘this is the time to buy’, as they found prices cheap. Now the market has bounced back and they have been rewarded.”
Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index plunged 13.2 per cent on April 7 after the US imposed hefty tariffs on Chinese imports, marking its largest one-day decline since October 1997. Despite ongoing volatility due to the back-and-forth tariff exchanges, the index has since recovered to early April levels after both sides agreed to a 90-day truce earlier this month.
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