Young consumers’ spending on anime, comics, games and pop toys, alongside growing wellness expenditures by senior consumers, will continue to shape China’s consumption landscape this year, according to HSBC Holdings Against this backdrop, the coming nine-day Spring Festival holiday was set to benefit the food, hotel and tourism sectors, HSBC said in a trend report, adding that this tailwind would ...
Young consumers’ spending on anime, comics, games and pop toys, alongside growing wellness expenditures by senior consumers, will continue to shape China’s consumption landscape this year, according to HSBC Holdings Against this backdrop, the coming nine-day Spring Festival holiday was set to benefit the food, hotel and tourism sectors, HSBC said in a trend report, adding that this tailwind would propel first-quarter growth in the food sector, particularly for snack food and dairy products. From a macroeconomic perspective, 2026 was not on track to outperform 2025, but renewed policy support would ensure steady growth, as current government stimulus measures to boost consumption had started to fizzle out, the report said. Advertisement HSBC expected more policy support for domestic demand this year, with the “two sessions” in March as the next venue for the release of such possible measures. China’s total retail sales growth in December slowed to 0.9 per cent from a year earlier, due to a high base, with the catering sector growing 2.2 per cent and retail goods edging up 0.7 per cent. Last year, total retail sales reached 50.1 trillion yuan (US$7.2 trillion), up 3.7 per cent over the previous year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Advertisement HSBC identified Hong Kong-listed companies Laopu Gold , Chinese bubble tea maker Guming Holdings, toy brand Pop Mart and budget retailer Miniso as firms that, despite facing a high growth base this year, boasted clear strategies for driving new revenue streams and expanding their customer bases.
Indonesian stocks recorded their first outflow since October last week, driven by cooling risk appetite ahead of a change by MSCI Inc. in its indexing methodology. Overseas investors sold $192 million worth of local stocks last week, marking their first outflow in 16 weeks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The withdrawals came after Indonesia’s equity benchmark rose to a record on Jan. 20....
Indonesian stocks recorded their first outflow since October last week, driven by cooling risk appetite ahead of a change by MSCI Inc. in its indexing methodology. Overseas investors sold $192 million worth of local stocks last week, marking their first outflow in 16 weeks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The withdrawals came after Indonesia’s equity benchmark rose to a record on Jan. 20. “Last week’s selling by foreigners was a mix of some paring ahead of MSCI’s free float-related announcement and profit taking,” said Nirgunan Tiruchelvam , an analyst at Aletheia Capital. “Even some of local money has gone out.” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists including Alvin So wrote in a note on Friday that MSCI’s recalculation of Indonesia’s free float may cause passive funds to pull out about $2.3 billion from the stock market in coming months. MSCI will decide by January-end whether to tighten its definition of free float — the shares available for trading and a key determinant of a stock’s weighting. If it finds that Indonesian firms, which already have Asia’s smallest average free float, have less stock available for trading than reported, passive investors would be forced to cut holdings. Any changes will take effect in its May review. “The upcoming MSCI free-float review has added an additional layer of caution,” said Ernest Chew , head of Asean equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management. “The recent outflows are more of a tactical de-risking and positioning adjustment rather than a fundamental shift.”