Next Media Shares Soar To Record Highs, HSI Down

Hong Kong stock index closed lower on Monday but shares in the company founded by media tycoon Jimmy Lai went soaring to record levels despite his arrest under the national security law as democracy activists hit social media urging investors to support the company.

Shares in Next Digital dived around 17 percent at one point after news about Lai's arrest broke. As images of scores of police officers marching into the Next Media buildings emerged, the shares started sliding and it ended at eight cents as the first session ended.

But things took a dramatic U-turn in the second session as the shares soared 344 percent and analysts said the surge was fuelled by pro-democracy activists urging investors on social media to pile into the market to support the firm.

They traded as much as 40 cents a share, the highest level in more than a year. At close, they were up 183 percent at 25.5 cents each.

One screen grab that appeared in an online chat forum popular with pro-democracy groups seemed to show one person bought more than 1.2 million shares in three separate transactions on Monday morning at 7.8 cents each for a total of more than HK$95,000.

Messages also appeared on social media showing support for the media company and its founder.

An investor who writes a financial column for Apple Daily, Stanley Wong, said he bought 1.22 million shares to show support for Lai.

Wong also wrote that he made HK$75,000 of profit from the share purchase and said he would use that to set up a scholarship to support students of Chinese University – his alma mater.

"The last mainstream media that has been striving to oppose the Communist Party can be over any time," wrote HenryPorterBabel, a Facebook page with more than 39,000 followers, adding it was buying 300,000 shares.

Calls have also gone out online for democracy supporters to buy Tuesday's Apple Daily newspaper – if it can still be printed.

"I will buy tomorrow's Apple Daily even if it is a pile of blank papers," wrote Shiu Ka-chun, a pro-democracy lawmaker with a photo of him holding a copy of the newspaper.

But other analysts said the surge was as investors believe the worst is over after the arrests and they are expecting the next person in charge would take the company in a different direction.

Shares of other media company also rallied on Monday. Most Kwai Chung surged 47 per cent while i-Cable Communications rallied 19 per cent.

As all this drama was going on, the Hang Seng Index fell 0.6 percent, to 24,377 over concerns about the effects of the China-US standoff, with Washington imposing sanctions on the city's leaders.

Tencent shedding nearly 4 percent after Friday's 5 percent drop in response to the US ban on transactions linked to WeChat.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.8 percent, to 3,379 while the Shenzhen Composite Index edged up 0.2 percent, to 2,277.

The rest of Asia was in were positive territory with Sydney 1.8 percent higher, while Seoul and Manila were also more than 1 percent up.

Mumbai added 0.7 percent and Taipei put on 0.5 percent. Tokyo was closed for a holiday. (RTHK, AFP)