Hong Kong stocks closed higher on Wednesday. The Hang Seng Index rose 0.9%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index climbed 1%.

In terms of star stocks, Tianqi Lithium up 6%; Li Ning up 4%; Pop Mart up 3.4%; SMIC, Meituan, Baidu, Kuaishou up 2%; Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com rose 1%.

While the November data showed that the US jobs market was softening, the deterioration was not alarming enough to prompt the US Federal Reserve to cut the interest rate in the near term, analysts said. The probability of a quarter-point cut next month now stood at 25.5 per cent, according to CME Group. That would test the resilience of US and global stocks, which traded near record highs amid stretched valuations.

“The US jobs market is cooling and on track for a soft landing,” said Zhang Di, an analyst at China Galaxy Securities in Beijing. “But we think that there’s limited urgency for the Fed to deliver a rate reduction in January and that the Fed may wait for one or two months to re-evaluate the window for the rate cut after access to data that is less distorted.”

The US added 64,000 jobs in November, improving from a loss of 105,000 positions in the previous month amid a contraction in government employment. Still, the unemployment rate rose to 4.56 per cent last month, compared with 4.44 per cent for September.

Investors will turn to the November US inflation data due later Thursday for fresh clues on monetary policy direction. Core consumer prices probably rose 2.9 per cent from a year earlier last month, decelerating from a 3.02 per cent increase in September, according to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank predicted cooling inflation in 2026 because of a weaker labour market and the waning effect of the tariffs.

Two companies started trading. HashKey Holdings, Hong Kong’s largest licensed cryptocurrency exchange, dropped 0.2 per cent to HK$6.67 in Hong Kong. MetaX Integrated Circuits, the Chinese graphics processing unit maker, surged 693% to 829.9 yuan in Shanghai, underscoring the euphoric trade on China’s technological self-reliance drive.

The tech independence and the anti-involution campaign of cutting obsolete capacities at some of the green industries were the two key investment themes that would have a pronounced impact on Chinese stocks, according to global index compiler FTSE Russell.