By Summer Zhen
HONG KONG, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong stocks logged marginal gains on Monday, while Chinese equities were range-bound as investors started to pocket gains from a tech-driven rally and awaited further policy signals from President Xi Jinping's meeting with private enterprises.
** At the midday break, the Hang Seng Index .HSI gained 0.18% to 22,661.9. It crossed the 23,000 level in early trade to scale a fresh year-to-date high and approached the previous peak reached in October 2024.
** "As the index approaches last year's high, some investors who bought at the peak in October 2024 might take profits," Richard Tang, China Strategist at Julius Baer, said.
** Xi Jinping met private business leaders in Beijing on the day, official news agency Xinhua said.
** Last week, Reuters reported that top Chinese tech entrepreneurs, including Alibaba 9988.HK co-founder Jack Ma and Tencent 0700.HK CEO Pony Ma, would attend the symposium aimed at boosting private-sector sentiment.
** Tech stocks, which logged their best winning streak in over two years, saw growing divergence.
** Despite Tencent's 0700.HK 4% rise after the internet giant said it was introducing DeepSeek's artificial intelligence model for testing in its messaging app, broader Hang Seng Tech Index .HSTECH dropped 0.1% by midday.
** Alibaba 9988.HK fell 0.08%, while Baidu 9888.HK lost 6.8%.
** The Shanghai Composite index .SSEC added 0.06% to 3,348.85 points, while China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 was up 0.07% to 3941.76 points.
** Some banks, including BofA Securities, warned of short-term over-shoot optimism.
** "We caution that China market may still face short-term negative catalysts from policy disappointment, geopolitical tensions and weak macro data/earnings," BofA analysts said.
** CICC analysts said the rally led by Hong Kong-listed tech stocks was driven by speculative trading and passive funds, while foreign long-term investors remained on the sidelines.
** Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index .MIAPJ0000PUS firmed 0.35%, while Japan's Nikkei index .N225 gained 0.15%.
(Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Sumana Nandy)
((summer.zhen@thomsonreuters.com; 852-3462-7739;))
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