Updates to market close

SHANGHAI, March 19 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong stocks closed nearly unchanged on Wednesday, as investors weighed profit-taking from the recent tech rally against the potential effects of Beijing's measures to stimulate consumption.

** China's blue-chip CSI300 Index .CSI300 held its ground by market close, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC edged 0.1% lower. Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng .HSI edged 0.1% higher.

** "Last week marked the first instance of material hedge fund profit-taking across Hong Kong and China since the beginning of the recent rally," Morgan Stanley traders said in a note to investors.

** Hedge funds have nearly fully unwound their buying in onshore shares since mid-January, but only around 30% of inflows into Hong Kong shares have been reversed, the traders said.

** Shares of China's artificial intelligence companies .CSI930713 were down 2% while Hong Kong's tech index .HSTECH dropped 1.1%. The two sub-indexes have risen 13% and 35%, respectively.

** Shares of Xiaomi 1810.HK, the world's third-largest smartphone maker, rose 0.7% after it reported an almost 50% jump in fourth-quarter revenue, beating analysts' estimates, and also raised its target for electric vehicle deliveries.

** Meanwhile, electric car maker Xpeng 9868.HK slumped 5.8% following the release of its quarterly results on Tuesday.

** "We expect China's growth momentum to moderate after a strong start to 2025, as the U.S. tariffs start to bite, and the effect of policy stimulus fades," said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas.

** Last week, China unveiled an action plan aimed at boosting consumption, with measures including increasing residents' income and establishing a childcare subsidy scheme.

** "The stimulus is a step in the right direction, even though most of the policies will have a marginal impact," Rong said.

** China's consumer staples shares .CSICS dropped 0.4%, while consumer discretionary stocks .CSIASCDI rose 0.4%.

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

((li.gu@tr.com))