Chinese investors are helping to drive a bull run in Hong Kong shares, plowing almost HK$150 billion ($19.3 billion) into the financial hub this year, more than seven times the amount they added during the same period in 2024. That’s despite an earlier Chinese New Year holiday reducing the number of trading days this year.

Turnover in Hong Kong via the exchange links accounted for nearly half the total on Monday with another HK$16.5 billion of purchases, the most since early December. Mainland investors have been ardent buyers of Tencent Holdings Ltd., taking their stake to around 11.4% of shares outstanding, and of Xiaomi Corp, of which they now own 16.2%.

Optimism over DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, has catapulted the Hang Seng Tech Index into a bull market last week. In contrast, onshore investors have been more hesitant to bid up stocks on their side of the border, with the CSI 300 Index down nearly 1% for the year.