HK Stock Market Move | Hong Kong bank stocks fell in the afternoon, with Standard Chartered falling by more than 5%. JP Morgan said that HSBC and Standard Chartered are more vulnerable in an economic recession.

In the afternoon, Hong Kong banking stocks saw larger declines. As of the time of writing, STANCHART (02888) fell by 5.09% to HK$86.75; DAHSING BANKING (02356) fell by 3.99% to HK$7.46; HSBC HOLDINGS (00005) fell by 3.3% to HK$70.3; BOC HONG KONG (02388) fell by 2.78% to HK$28. JPMorgan released a research report stating that the stock prices of HSBC HOLDINGS and STANCHART have respectively adjusted by 16.6% and 20.4% since April 2, underperforming the Hang Seng Index by 2.1% and 5.9% respectively. The bank believes that the market is betting on a global recession, which could lead to deeper interest rate cuts, reduced trading bank revenue, and higher credit costs. JPMorgan believes that in the event of a recession in the US and globally, currency center banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered may be more vulnerable than Hong Kong banks and domestic banks. Therefore, it is believed that these two banks will underperform the overall market in the short term, with Standard Chartered's stock performance potentially worse than HSBC's due to its higher dependence on trading bank revenue and greater exposure to economies impacted by tariffs. The target prices for HSBC and Standard Chartered are HK$115 and HK$135 respectively, both with a rating of "hold".