Finance Morning: Shein Falls Nearly 8% in Hong Kong Debut; Tim Cook Steps Down as Apple CEO

📊 Today's Asian Markets

1. Shein Falls Nearly 8% in Hong Kong Debut

Source: BBC

Fast-fashion giant Shein listed in Hong Kong on Tuesday (September 1) after a long road to the public market. Its highly anticipated debut was weak, with the stock falling nearly 8% on its first day of trading.

On Monday (August 31), Shein priced its offering at HK$48.56 per share, raising HK$13.6 billion (about US$1.74 billion) through the listing. It is Hong Kong's largest IPO so far this year, seen as a key test of investor appetite for the fast-fashion sector.

Shein had previously tried and failed to list in the United States and the United Kingdom. The company was once valued at close to US$100 billion, but its market value is now roughly a quarter of that. In its pre-listing filings, Shein said it had more than 273 million active customers and over 1 billion orders in the year to end-March 2026.

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2. Tim Cook Steps Down as Apple CEO

Source: Sina Finance

Tim Cook officially stepped down as Apple CEO on September 1. In a farewell post on social media, Cook said it was his last day as Apple's chief executive, thanked the Apple community, and said he looked forward to a new chapter.

Elon Musk commented on the post, congratulating Cook on a brilliant career at Apple.

Cook took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, when Apple's market value was about US$350 billion. It has since surpassed US$4 trillion. Annual revenue grew from US$108 billion to US$416 billion, and Apple's stock rose more than 2,200% during his tenure, making it the first company to reach US$1 trillion, US$2 trillion and US$3 trillion in market value.

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3. China's August Manufacturing PMI Rebounds; New Property Credit Rules Take Effect

Source: Sina Finance

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on August 31 showed that China's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 49.8% in August, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous month. Both the production and new orders sub-indexes returned to expansion territory, and the factory-gate price index returned above the boom-bust line for the first time in months.

By enterprise size, the PMI for large enterprises was 50.6%, up 1.1 percentage points; mid-sized enterprises stood at 49.4%; and small enterprises at 47.9%. The PMI for equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing came in at 51.4% and 52.9% respectively, both remaining in expansion territory.

On the property front, the central bank, financial regulator and housing ministry rolled out a series of property policy adjustments on August 28, including extending personal mortgage terms to up to 40 years, delaying pre-sale mortgage disbursement until completion, and fully aligning development loans with the whitelist mechanism, as well as establishing a counter-cyclical adjustment mechanism for property finance.

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4. China's Big Six Banks Plan Over RMB 220 Billion in Interim Dividends

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

First-half reports from China's six big state-owned banks showed combined operating revenue of RMB 2,004.99 billion, up 9.38% year-on-year, and combined net profit of RMB 712.60 billion, up 4.41%. All six banks posted growth in both revenue and profit — their strongest first-half results since 2021.

In terms of scale, ICBC continued to lead with a balance sheet of RMB 57 trillion, while Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China crossed the RMB 50 trillion and RMB 40 trillion marks respectively. By end-June, the six banks' combined assets reached RMB 231.72 trillion, up more than 5% from end-2025.

Under their interim dividend plans, the six banks plan combined interim dividends of about RMB 220.99 billion, up 7.98% from a year earlier. ICBC and China Construction Bank each plan to pay out more than RMB 50 billion.

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5. Equity Fund Boom; Ant Fund Profit Soars 178%

Source: Sina Finance

A strong rebound in equity funds in the first half activated the fund distribution market, with leading players benefiting the most. Net profit at third-party platforms Ant Fund and Tiantian Fund rose 178% and 73% year-on-year respectively, while China Merchants Bank and its subsidiary grew agency fund income by more than 61%.

Specifically, Ant Fund posted first-half operating revenue of RMB 12.98 billion, up 40.28%, and net profit of RMB 1.21 billion, up more than 178%. Tiantian Fund reported first-half net profit of RMB 111 million, up 73%.

Meanwhile, competition in the fund distribution industry has intensified, as banks, brokerages and third-party platforms accelerate differentiated strategies, shifting the battleground toward client experience, advisory capability and refined operations.

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6. UK 30-Year Gilt Yield Tops 5.9%

Source: Xinhua Finance

Under pressure from rising inflation and a global bond sell-off, UK government bond yields hit their highest level since 1998. On September 1, the 30-year gilt yield reached 5.9%, while the 10-year yield reached 5.24%, its highest since the 2008 financial crisis.

Domestically, UK inflation pressure picked up markedly in August, with the shop price index posting its biggest gain in nearly two years. On the fiscal side, UK public borrowing stood at £1.8 billion in July, up £700 million from a year earlier.

Internationally, the rise in US Treasury yields has spilled over to developed countries including the UK. Taken together, UK gilt yields are likely to remain elevated this year.

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7. Weak-Dollar Trade Revives; Emerging Markets See Strongest August in 22 Years

Source: Yicai

The US dollar weakened for a second straight month in August, having fallen in five of the first eight months of the year. The US Treasury's plan to accelerate bond buybacks, plus a joint intervention with Japan to boost the yen, renewed investor worries about the outlook for dollar assets.

Fueled by the weak-dollar trade, emerging-market assets posted their strongest August in more than 20 years. The MSCI emerging-market stock benchmark rose 3.3% in August, its best August since 2004, while the emerging-market currency index also rose for a second straight month.

The best-performing currencies in August included the Korean won and the South African rand. Analysts said US fiscal and debt concerns have driven a fresh round of capital inflows into emerging markets, substantially supporting emerging-market local-currency assets.

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8. Nikkei Ends Down 0.15%

Source: Kyodo News

Tokyo's Nikkei index was mixed on September 1, closing down 96.59 points at 66,215.34, a loss of 0.15%. In early trading, the index fell more than 700 points on rising long-term interest rates before bargain-hunting emerged.

The broader TOPIX rose 25.57 points to close at 4,181.86, up 0.62%, on total trading volume of 2.28 billion shares.

Investors worried about Japan's fiscal deterioration and expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise rates at its next policy meeting pushed long-term interest rates to their highest level in about 30 years, stoking concerns over higher financing costs. Rising US crude futures on Middle East uncertainty also weighed on sentiment.

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9. Korean Stock Market Volatility Plunges in August, Trading Shrinks

Source: JoongAng Ilbo

After months of wild swings, South Korea's KOSPI index calmed markedly in August. According to the Korea Exchange on September 1, the KOSPI 200 volatility index (VKOSPI) fell to 44.09 from 96.94 on June 29, roughly halving.

Market activity also cooled. August average daily KOSPI turnover was about 26 trillion won, the lowest this year and roughly half of June's level. Investor deposits also fell below the 100 trillion won mark, from a record 139.69 trillion won on June 4 to 98.70 trillion won on August 28.

With foreign investors absent, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix bought back a combined 10.3 trillion won of their own shares between August 20 and 28, becoming a key force supporting the market's downside.

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10. BYD Sells 433,000 Passenger Vehicles in August

Source: Sina Finance

BYD announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1 that it sold 433,384 passenger vehicles in August, including 256,230 battery-electric vehicles and 177,154 plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Including commercial vehicles, BYD's total August vehicle sales reached 440,293 units, bringing cumulative sales this year to 2,668,015 units.

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