[ET Net News Agency, 17 June 2026] Waiting for the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision, Hong Kong stocks still recorded a half-day turnover of HKD 145.5 billion, with blue chips showing mixed performances. The HSI reported 24,403 at midday, down 89 points or 0.4%, with main board turnover exceeding HKD 145.5 billion. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index reported 8,179, down 60 points or 0.7%. The Hang Seng Tech Index reported 4,666, up 8 points or 0.2%.
"Ng Lai Yin: Still 60 days of unpredictability after the memorandum"
The US Federal Reserve is about to announce its interest rate decision tonight. The market is focusing on the first post-meeting statement to be delivered by Warsh since taking office as Chairman. Wall Street faced profit-taking pressure overnight, and Asian stock markets opened lower this morning but showed rebounding momentum intraday. As of midday, Japanese and Korean stocks turned from losses to gains. Regarding Hong Kong stocks, the market turned downward after an early rally, hitting a low of 24,267 before rebounding, narrowing the half-day loss to less than 100 points. Ng Lai Yin, a securities strategist at Everbright Securities, told ET Net News Agency that the first post-meeting statement by Warsh, who is viewed as a hawk, has raised market concern. In particular, the market has begun to expect a rate hike within this year, and Warsh's tone will significantly shake expectations. Since the news of the US-Iran ceasefire memorandum earlier this week, market expectations for a rate hike have decreased. However, Ng emphasised that the chance of a rate hike within this year remains high. Currently, interest rate futures indicate that the chance of a rate hike in December is still greater than keeping rates unchanged or cutting them. It is expected that even if the US-Iran ceasefire memorandum is signed, the uncertainty during the subsequent 60-day negotiation period will remain high, which will affect expectations and actual inflation performance. Therefore, it is still advisable not to be overly optimistic.
However, he explicitly stated that he is not too worried about the performance of US stocks. Although the performances of traditional stocks, tech stocks, and heavily speculated AI stocks diverge from time to time, the overall trends of the three major indices remain upward together. Therefore, he is not worried about the medium-to-long-term performance, though short-term speculation based on news over one or two days is indeed difficult to estimate.
"KB Laminates remains strong with a hundred-fold PB, defying the major shareholder's cash-out"
Although the Hong Kong stock market lacks storage concepts, the PCB sector, as one of the AI-related hardware concepts, is being heavily speculated in Hong Kong. However, after months of continuous speculation, the first drop of blood finally appeared. Based on yesterday's closing price, KB Laminates (01888) accumulated a year-to-date gain of 5.78 times. Its parent company, Kingboard Holdings (00148), then announced the placement of 155 million shares at HKD 76 per share, reducing its shareholding by 4.92 percentage points to 61.70%, cashing out approximately HKD 11.78 billion. This represents a discount of as much as 11.53% based on the company's closing price of the previous day. After Kingboard pocketed over 10 billion, its share price rose by more than 20% at most this morning. KB Laminates fell initially but saw strong intraday buying, successfully turning from losses to gains by midday.
The market worries that after a massive surge in share price, Kingboard's large-scale stake reduction might be a sign of the sector peaking. However, Ng countered that whether a stock has peaked is not determined by an individual stake reduction. He believes that the industry's growth trend is still rising. With demand surging rapidly and supply failing to catch up, PCB prices are expected to continue rising, and the upward trend will persist for at least the next two years, which he believes will be reflected in the financial results. The stake reduction will affect the share price performance in the short term, but his view on the industry remains positive, and he maintains a bullish outlook for the medium to long term.
Currently, the P/E ratio of KB Laminates has reached 110 times, and the forward P/E ratio has also reached 38 times. However, Ng believes that under the wave of PCB price increases, the company's financial results and earnings forecasts will both be revised upwards, causing both the P/E ratio and forward P/E ratio to drop accordingly. He believes the current P/E ratio has not fully reflected the potential valuation of the company's prospects, so there is still room for deployment now. He expects that there will be stronger support at around the company's stake reduction price of HKD 76, and investors should look out for this level when adding positions or entering the market.
"Heavily speculated concepts shake off the influence of Mainland China valuations; CFMEE is worth subscribing"
The PCB concept is extremely hot. Coinciding with the wave of IPOs before the half-year end, more than half of the six new stocks announced for subscription today are AI concepts, including three hardware categories. Among them, CFMEE (09630) (SH: 688630) is even the leader of the PCB concept. Ng believes that calculated based on industry growth expectations, CFMEE will still maintain a strong performance, and investors might as well subscribe to more new stocks. Although the stock consists of H-shares whose valuation will be affected by Mainland China shares, the previously listed PCB concept H-share, VGT (02476), showed strong share price performance on its first day of listing. It is expected that CFMEE also stands a great chance of standing out.
"Ng Lai Yin: Still 60 days of unpredictability after the memorandum"
The US Federal Reserve is about to announce its interest rate decision tonight. The market is focusing on the first post-meeting statement to be delivered by Warsh since taking office as Chairman. Wall Street faced profit-taking pressure overnight, and Asian stock markets opened lower this morning but showed rebounding momentum intraday. As of midday, Japanese and Korean stocks turned from losses to gains. Regarding Hong Kong stocks, the market turned downward after an early rally, hitting a low of 24,267 before rebounding, narrowing the half-day loss to less than 100 points. Ng Lai Yin, a securities strategist at Everbright Securities, told ET Net News Agency that the first post-meeting statement by Warsh, who is viewed as a hawk, has raised market concern. In particular, the market has begun to expect a rate hike within this year, and Warsh's tone will significantly shake expectations. Since the news of the US-Iran ceasefire memorandum earlier this week, market expectations for a rate hike have decreased. However, Ng emphasised that the chance of a rate hike within this year remains high. Currently, interest rate futures indicate that the chance of a rate hike in December is still greater than keeping rates unchanged or cutting them. It is expected that even if the US-Iran ceasefire memorandum is signed, the uncertainty during the subsequent 60-day negotiation period will remain high, which will affect expectations and actual inflation performance. Therefore, it is still advisable not to be overly optimistic.
However, he explicitly stated that he is not too worried about the performance of US stocks. Although the performances of traditional stocks, tech stocks, and heavily speculated AI stocks diverge from time to time, the overall trends of the three major indices remain upward together. Therefore, he is not worried about the medium-to-long-term performance, though short-term speculation based on news over one or two days is indeed difficult to estimate.
"KB Laminates remains strong with a hundred-fold PB, defying the major shareholder's cash-out"
Although the Hong Kong stock market lacks storage concepts, the PCB sector, as one of the AI-related hardware concepts, is being heavily speculated in Hong Kong. However, after months of continuous speculation, the first drop of blood finally appeared. Based on yesterday's closing price, KB Laminates (01888) accumulated a year-to-date gain of 5.78 times. Its parent company, Kingboard Holdings (00148), then announced the placement of 155 million shares at HKD 76 per share, reducing its shareholding by 4.92 percentage points to 61.70%, cashing out approximately HKD 11.78 billion. This represents a discount of as much as 11.53% based on the company's closing price of the previous day. After Kingboard pocketed over 10 billion, its share price rose by more than 20% at most this morning. KB Laminates fell initially but saw strong intraday buying, successfully turning from losses to gains by midday.
The market worries that after a massive surge in share price, Kingboard's large-scale stake reduction might be a sign of the sector peaking. However, Ng countered that whether a stock has peaked is not determined by an individual stake reduction. He believes that the industry's growth trend is still rising. With demand surging rapidly and supply failing to catch up, PCB prices are expected to continue rising, and the upward trend will persist for at least the next two years, which he believes will be reflected in the financial results. The stake reduction will affect the share price performance in the short term, but his view on the industry remains positive, and he maintains a bullish outlook for the medium to long term.
Currently, the P/E ratio of KB Laminates has reached 110 times, and the forward P/E ratio has also reached 38 times. However, Ng believes that under the wave of PCB price increases, the company's financial results and earnings forecasts will both be revised upwards, causing both the P/E ratio and forward P/E ratio to drop accordingly. He believes the current P/E ratio has not fully reflected the potential valuation of the company's prospects, so there is still room for deployment now. He expects that there will be stronger support at around the company's stake reduction price of HKD 76, and investors should look out for this level when adding positions or entering the market.
"Heavily speculated concepts shake off the influence of Mainland China valuations; CFMEE is worth subscribing"
The PCB concept is extremely hot. Coinciding with the wave of IPOs before the half-year end, more than half of the six new stocks announced for subscription today are AI concepts, including three hardware categories. Among them, CFMEE (09630) (SH: 688630) is even the leader of the PCB concept. Ng believes that calculated based on industry growth expectations, CFMEE will still maintain a strong performance, and investors might as well subscribe to more new stocks. Although the stock consists of H-shares whose valuation will be affected by Mainland China shares, the previously listed PCB concept H-share, VGT (02476), showed strong share price performance on its first day of listing. It is expected that CFMEE also stands a great chance of standing out.
