NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2025, 8:08 a.m. ET — Market closed
Hong Kong Stock Exchange trading is paused for the weekend — and the cash equities market is coming off the Christmas shutdown — but the story around HKEX is anything but asleep heading into Monday’s reopen. As of Sunday morning in New York, U.S. markets are closed, and Hong Kong’s cash market won’t reopen until Monday, Dec. 29, according to HKEX’s trading calendar. [1]
For U.S.-based investors watching Asia, that reopen arrives sooner than it sounds: HKEX’s securities market runs a pre-opening auction session from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, followed by continuous trading from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. — meaning the first price discovery for Monday in Hong Kong begins Sunday evening in New York. [2]
The last 24–48 hours: policy headlines take center stage
Two fresh developments are shaping the “week-ahead” narrative for Hong Kong equities and the exchange operator itself.
First, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan raised the city’s 2025 growth forecast to 3.2% and said the government intends to strengthen the competitiveness of the stock market while expanding activity across bonds, money markets, fintech, commodities and gold trading. He also described finance, technology innovation and trade as the city’s key engines going forward and pointed to Hong Kong’s strong market performance this year, with the Hang Seng Index up about 30% in 2025. [3]
Second, Beijing signaled a more supportive macro stance for 2026. China’s finance ministry said fiscal policy will be more “proactive” next year, reiterating priorities including domestic demand, technology innovation and a stronger social safety net — a policy mix that markets typically read as more growth-supportive for China-linked sectors that dominate Hong Kong’s benchmark indices. Reuters also reported that government advisers and analysts expect China to aim for roughly 5% growth in 2026, which would likely require continued fiscal and monetary support. [4]
A big 2026 rule change with direct relevance to Hong Kong listings
A third headline, released late in the week, matters less for Monday’s opening print and more for the structural plumbing of cross-border capital raising — a core piece of HKEX’s ecosystem.
China will require domestic firms to repatriate funds raised through overseas listings “in principle” under new guidelines that take effect April 1, 2026, Reuters reported. The rules also describe approval requirements for keeping funds overseas, call for dedicated capital accounts for cross-border settlements, and include provisions tied to H-share “full circulation” — a key channel for making mainland-incorporated company shares tradable in Hong Kong. [5]
Why that matters for Hong Kong: HKEX is not just a local market. It is the main offshore equity fundraising venue for China-related issuers, and anything that changes the rules around proceeds, dividends, and cross-border settlement can shape issuer behavior, investor expectations, and — over time — listing strategies.
Market mechanics: HKEX is reopening after the holiday pause
HKEX’s operational calendar is straightforward for the days immediately ahead: while Hong Kong markets were closed Dec. 25 and Dec. 26 for Christmas (with certain derivatives products still available), HKEX indicates the Hong Kong markets “will re-open as usual on 29 December.” [6]
That reopening dynamic matters because holiday closures compress reaction time. The next full cash session will have to digest several days of macro and policy headlines at once — including weekend messaging out of Beijing — and do it in a market that can be thinner-than-usual as the year closes.
HKEX’s 2025 scorecard: IPOs, turnover, and product expansion
The backdrop is unusually upbeat for a market that spent much of the early 2020s fighting weak sentiment and deal flow.
In its “HKEX in 2025: Year in Review,” the exchange said Hong Kong ranked as the world’s top IPO venue in 2025, and highlighted a sharp pickup in market activity: average daily turnover in the cash market for the first 11 months of 2025 reached HK$230.7 billion, up 43% year-on-year, and IPO fundraising totaled HK$274.6 billion from 106 new listings as of Dec. 19. HKEX also pointed to expansion in derivatives and exchange-traded products, and to reforms aimed at improving liquidity and price discovery. [7]
Those exchange-level metrics matter for investors because they drive HKEX’s fee and trading revenue sensitivity — and because they reflect what global allocators care about most in Hong Kong: liquidity, pipeline, and the credibility of the market’s rules.
Forecasts and analysis: a crowded 2026 pipeline, and higher expectations
The forward-looking consensus from major professional-services analysts is that Hong Kong’s IPO momentum can persist into 2026 — but with caveats.
KPMG said Hong Kong reclaimed the top spot in global IPO rankings for the first time since 2019, driven by a record number of A+H listings (companies listed both onshore in China and in Hong Kong). KPMG also flagged an “all-time high” pipeline of more than 300 active IPO applications as of Dec. 7, including 92 active A+H applicants, and argued the backlog positions the market to carry momentum into 2026. In KPMG’s view, Hong Kong’s surge in funds raised made it a major contributor to the global IPO market’s recovery, and it expects the upward trend to continue into 2026, with AI-related listings likely to accelerate as adoption widens. [8]
Deloitte’s late-December outlook goes a step further on volume expectations. Deloitte China projected that Hong Kong’s IPO funds raised in 2026 could reach HKD 300 billion for the first time since 2021, and linked the 2026 setup to multiple forces — including U.S. rate cuts, mainland policy support for “hard technology,” and ongoing Hong Kong capital-market reforms that could help attract jumbo IPO candidates across sectors and jurisdictions. [9]
Meanwhile, EY’s global IPO outlook strikes a more tempered tone that still fits Hong Kong’s situation: EY said 2025 reflected improving functionality but higher investor selectivity — with investors favoring “scale, clarity and resilience,” and issuance windows opening and closing abruptly amid volatility. That combination tends to reward larger, higher-quality offerings while punishing deals that overreach on valuation. [10]
The key tension: IPO boom vs. IPO “digestion”
If 2025 was the comeback year for Hong Kong listings, the late-year question has shifted from “Is the window open?” to “How much can the market absorb without choking?”
A Financial Times analysis published this week warned that Hong Kong’s record IPO year is showing signs of strain: a significant share of recent debuts failed to rise on day one, and the pipeline remains crowded into 2026 — dynamics that can pressure pricing discipline and aftermarket performance. [11]
This is where HKEX’s “exchange story” and investors’ “portfolio story” collide in the most interesting way. The exchange operator benefits from activity — listings, turnover, derivatives volumes — but the market’s long-run health depends on sustainable outcomes for investors, not just a high deal count. If new issues repeatedly disappoint, risk appetite can fade quickly, which can slow issuance and weigh on secondary trading.
What investors should know before the next HKEX session
With the market closed right now, the practical question for many investors is: what’s most likely to move Hong Kong at the reopen?
1) Policy tone from Beijing and Hong Kong is turning into the primary catalyst.
Hong Kong’s government is explicitly talking up market competitiveness and financial-market expansion, while Beijing is emphasizing “proactive” fiscal policy for 2026. Together, those messages can boost sentiment toward Hong Kong-listed financials, consumer names, and the China-heavy tech complex — but the market will want to see follow-through in data and implementation details. [12]
2) The opening auction matters more than usual after a multi-day headline build-up.
HKEX’s pre-opening session is designed to incorporate potentially market-moving overnight news into a single-price auction process before continuous trading begins — precisely the setup markets lean on after weekends and holidays. [13]
3) Cross-border capital rules are a medium-term overhang that could influence issuer behavior.
The repatriation requirement for overseas listing proceeds, plus the rules around approvals for keeping funds offshore and the handling of “full circulation” mechanics, are not a Monday-morning trading signal by themselves — but they are the kind of policy detail that investment banks, issuers, and long-horizon investors will begin modeling immediately. [14]
4) The IPO pipeline is huge — and that can cut both ways.
KPMG’s data points to an unusually large queue of potential listings, and Deloitte forecasts a stronger fundraising year in 2026. That supports the “HKEX as a global fundraising hub” narrative — but a crowded calendar can also force issuers to compete harder on price and quality, especially if aftermarket performance is inconsistent. [15]
5) Watch for late-year liquidity effects and positioning.
Hong Kong is reopening into the final trading stretch of the year, when liquidity and rebalancing flows can amplify moves — particularly in index-heavy names that dominate Hang Seng and Hang Seng Tech. HKEX itself has emphasized that 2025’s rebound has been accompanied by higher turnover and broader product usage, which can sharpen both risk-on surges and risk-off air pockets. [16]
Bottom line
As of Sunday morning in New York, the market is closed — but Hong Kong’s reopen is approaching quickly, and it arrives with a rare combination of supportive policy messaging, a record IPO narrative, and an expanding pipeline that will test pricing discipline. The first HKEX session back (Monday, Dec. 29 in Hong Kong) will be less about “new data” and more about how traders reprice the macro story that built up while cash equities were dark — and whether the IPO boom can keep running without tripping over its own shoelaces. [17]
References
1. www.hkex.com.hk, 2. www.hkex.com.hk, 3. www.reuters.com, 4. www.reuters.com, 5. www.reuters.com, 6. www.hkex.com.hk, 7. www.hkex.com.hk, 8. kpmg.com, 9. www.deloitte.com, 10. www.ey.com, 11. www.ft.com, 12. www.reuters.com, 13. www.hkex.com.hk, 14. www.reuters.com, 15. kpmg.com, 16. www.hkex.com.hk, 17. www.hkex.com.hk
