Chinese Investors Use Connect Program to Buy Hong Kong Stocks

亚洲股票投资者之间的所有眼睛都在上海最后跌倒时固定中国首次开启了城市的股市到海外零售投资者。但5个月后,已经把重点转移到a sudden surge in demand for Hong Kong–listed stocks from mainland investors.

11月推出了Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect program是一个紧紧管理的双向投资街，让外国人只是通过通过香港经纪人和内地人对香港联合交易所的贸易来扮演上海证券交易所。经过多年的辩论和猜测后的安排代表了多年来中国资本市场最重要的自由化之一。

After an initial burst of Shanghai stock buys by investors from around the world, however, traffic on the northbound side of the Connect street has moderated. Foreign buying of Shanghai stocks averaged 4.3 billion yuan a day ($700 million) in the first ten days after the Connect program opened in mid-November, slowed to 2.7 billion yuan a day in January and February and then rebounded a bit to 3.3 billion yuan in March, after the Chinese New Year holiday.

A recent report by Shanghai-based Z-Ben Advisors said northbound traffic on the Connect street was maturing, with flows from foreign investors “slowly transforming from momentum-led speculation to longer-term buy-and-hold.”

经过contrast, southbound flows have surged lately. The average daily volume of all stock buying and selling by Chinese investors on the Hong Kong exchange through the Connect program was HK$14.7 billion ($1.9 billion) between April 1 and 15, or more than nine times the average daily turnover March, according to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the company that operates the exchange. On two days during that period, net buying by mainlanders hit the daily ceiling of 10.5 billion yuan set by Chinese regulators. Many analysts believe these outbound investment flows will continue to grow because they are consistent with the authorities’ plan for greater financial liberalization.

几个因素正在推动大陆投资者对港股的兴趣。大陆股的巨大反弹使香港估值更具吸引力。截至4月24日的12个月，上海的上海证券交易所综合指数上涨了119％，而香港恒生指数在此期间则仅达到27％，大部分后者自3月初以来正在发生。香港上市的中国公司股份，称为H股，3月平均收益10.7倍，而上海上市股份的价格与收益比例为20.5。分析师表示，香港吸引了大陆对冲基金的许多购买兴趣以及一直落后于上海集会的零售投资者。

监管变化也促进了南行投资流动。3月27日中国证券监督管理委员会（CSRC）宣布了一项政策变革，使中国共同基金更加进入香港交易所。此举，中国保险监管委员会给予保险公司允许扩大其投资范围，包括增长企业市场，是香港交易所的扶手，专注于年轻的成长公司。“监管机构鼓励机构投资者购买香港股票，”中国卢亚博赞助欧冠文杰在上海瑞银证券办事处股票战略家陆文杰说。

根据中国证券期刊最近的一份报告，中国共同基金已延迟延迟，在1月1日至4月21日之间推出超过3640亿元人民币。这笔钱的一个好的块可以南方。“目前市场估计，大陆的资金准备投资于香港股票，”香港东亚银行银行的财富管理负责人陈宝坤在较晚的话说4月份由上海证券新闻新闻追踪恒生指数的资金也看到了大量的投资者流入。In the first five trading days after the CSRC’s March announcement, the Easy Way to Reach Hang Seng H-shares ETF’s assets rose 31 percent, to 1.3 billion yuan, while the smaller Chinese Hang Seng ETF’s holdings jumped 43 percent, according to the state-run Securities Times newspaper. Both funds are managed by China Asset Management Co.

The authorities are expected to take more steps in the near future to broaden Chinese investors’ access to overseas markets, according to securities analysts and Chinese media reports.

国家媒体建议当局今年可能会推出深圳 - 香港跨境股票投资计划。中国官员还暗示了海外交流的可能绑架。分析师称，新加坡交流是一个潜在的伴侣，即与大陆交流的联系方式。

Connect is an innovation that’s designed “to enhance the level of internationalization of our asset management industry,” Deng Ge, a spokesman for the CSRC, said recently. Hong Kong officials echo that point. “Stock Connect is more than just another simple investment channel,” Charles Li, CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, wrote in an April 9 blog entry. “Its real, lasting meaning will be in enabling Chinese investors to internationalize their asset allocation in order to grow their wealth over the long term.”

UBS Securities’ Lu says Connect is likely to be a first step toward giving mainland investors the power to play stock and even bond markets worldwide. “The general trend is definitely to liberalize cross-border investment,” Lu says. “Southbound investment is just a part of that.” He predicts regulators will open the cross-border investment window wider within a matter of months.

Deng told reporters in early April that Chinese and Hong Kong securities regulators were jointly studying a proposal to raise the Connect program’s trading limits. Current rules set net buying limits of 10.5 billion yuan for Chinese investors going into Hong Kong and 13 billion yuan for foreign investors going into Shanghai.

The quotas were originally set “to ensure the scheme got off the ground in a smooth and stable way,” said Hong Kong Exchanges’ Li. But with Chinese investors bumping up against the southbound quota limit, exchange officials “are urging authorities to quickly expand the quotas,” he added.

China’s market regulators “are looking to encourage firms to invest offshore and, as part of this, are looking to provide multiple access points to do so,” says Stephen Baron, Z-Ben Advisors’ deputy director of strategic solutions. He suggests that the Connect program could become the main vehicle for mainland investors to play the Hong Kong market, whereas the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program, which the authorities initiated in 2006 to enable Chinese institutions to invest in overseas markets, focuses on other foreign markets and becomes the means by which Chinese investors get “broader global exposure.”