By Cao Li

Copyright scmp

Hong Kong stocks slid on Monday after a highly anticipated call on Friday between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping provided investors with little to whet their risk appetite.
The Hang Seng Index lost 1 per cent to 26,280.72 at the noon trading break. The Hang Seng Tech Index dropped 1.2 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index were little changed.
Chinese sportswear giant Anta Sports Products dropped 3.6 per cent to HK$93.35, after a fireworks show staged by its brand Arc’teryx in Tibet received criticism for possible environmental damage. Anta acquired Arc’teryx parent Amber Sports in 2019.
Limiting losses, Sunny Optical Technology, the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphone camera lenses, jumped 6 per cent to HK$86.40 after mainland sales of Apple’s latest iPhone got off to a strong start.
The call between Trump and Xi covered issues including trade, fentanyl and the TikTok deal, as well as the need to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end. Xi urged Trump to avoid restrictive trade measures and not to undermine progress made in earlier talks aimed at easing tensions.
Trump said he would meet Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Seoul at the end of October, which would be the first face-to-face meeting for the leaders of the world’s two largest economies since Trump returned to office in January.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said over the weekend that the US operations of TikTok would be majority-owned and controlled by Americans, with the final deal to be signed in the coming days.
While the call sent positive signals, it lacked concrete progress, said Kenny Ng Lai-yin, a strategist at Everbright Securities International. The TikTok deal showed that “China is making compromise”, but it would have been far more positive for the market if the situation were the other way round, he said.
Analysts said investors did not expect concrete progress on trade until later this year, after the current tariff suspension expires in November and Chinese leaders meet in December for the annual economic work conference, which sets the agenda for China’s economy.
“The market just assumed that this will be put off indefinitely,” said Wang Qi, the chief investment officer of UOB Kay Hian’s wealth management division in Hong Kong.
China would face greater challenges in the second half of the year, as the property market continued its downward trend, consumption remained sluggish and exports started to lose momentum, Wang said. “These are the big parts of the Chinese economy,” he added.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.5 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi added 0.7 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6 per cent.