Has Hong Kong stocks’ spring arrived?

Around 20:00 on the evening of July 17, 2026, the Ministry of Commerce’s official website published a Q&A with reporters, formally confirming for external parties: the U.S. side has informed the Chinese side that it will terminate Executive Order No. 13936, signed in 2020.
The executive order required U.S. pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, large investment banks, and asset management institutions to classify Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies as high-risk assets. This pressured risk controls within institutions to lower the maximum allocation limit for Hong Kong stocks, drove long-term capital to passively keep reducing holdings, and restricted new funds from entering. It directly pushed up Hong Kong stocks’ risk premium, becoming a legal reason for foreign capital to continuously avoid Hong Kong stocks and for long-term geopolitical discounts to be applied to Hong Kong stock valuations. This was an important policy constraint behind Hong Kong stocks’ valuations being under sustained pressure and liquidity tightening over the past five years.
With the termination of this executive order, a “stone” that has suppressed Hong Kong stocks for years has finally landed.