US & Hong Kong Market Update (2026-08-25)

Report date: 2026-08-25 | Market data as of: 2026-08-24 US close / HK close Sources: Live X (Twitter) search via grok-x (window from 2026-08-23) + Eastmoney/Tencent Securities quotes + post-close options flow scan Note: X posts are used only for events, views and sentiment. All index and single-stock moves come from exchange closing data.

1. Key Events

1. Alibaba completes a US$10.2bn Hong Kong follow-on — the largest in HK market history. @zerohedge flagged premarket: "Alibaba ADRs (BABA) fall 2% after raising $10.2 billion in Hong Kong's biggest follow-on offering." HK-listed 9988.HK plunged -8.54% to HK$112.50 (turnover above HK$40.5bn, the single largest drag on the Hang Seng); the US ADR $BABA closed at $118.47, -0.73% — a far smaller decline, as the ADR had already absorbed the news the prior session. 𝕏

2. Hang Seng snaps a five-day winning streak, falling -1.89% to 25,517.33. On Friday @bobchan833 recorded the index "closing at the day's high of 26,009, up 310 points or 1.21%" with the Tech Index +1.39%, and @ImpliedOpen posted Monday's Asian pre-market at "Hang Seng 25,914.72 +0.84%" — but the close was broadly red: Tencent -3.72%, Xiaomi -4.14%, Meituan -2.71%, Li Auto -3.40%, JD.com -1.65%. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

3. NVIDIA reports Wednesday, dominating the market's attention. @zerohedge framed the week as "Key Events This Week: Jackson Hole. Nvidia Earnings And Core PCE," and added "Futures Slide Ahead Of 'Pivotal Week' With Nvidia Earnings, Warsh Speech On Deck." $NVDA closed at $208.48, -2.91%, the most actively traded name of the session. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

4. AI hardware sells off broadly; Nasdaq leads the decline. S&P 500 -0.28% and Nasdaq -0.76%, while the Dow rose +0.26% — a clear style rotation. @Xpress_24_7 noted intraday "weakness in chipmakers and AI-infrastructure stocks." At the close: $MU -5.83%, $AMD -3.49%, $AVGO -2.63%, $INTC -3.12%; optical module maker $AAOI fell -13.77% to $107.63 after filing for a possible share offering, the day's biggest loser. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

5. PDD beats on Q2 earnings, but the stock opens high and closes lower. @zerohedge reported premarket that "PDD Holdings ADRs (PDD) rise 2% after the owner of Temu reported second quarter earnings that beat the average analyst estimate." In fact $PDD opened at $90.95 and drifted lower all session, closing down -1.48% at $87.07 (trailing P/E 9.3x) — positive news flow, but the stock closed in the red. 𝕏

6. Regenxbio hit by an FDA clinical hold, collapsing on the day. The FDA placed a clinical hold on its investigational gene therapy RGX-121 for Hunter Syndrome; $RGNX closed at $8.06, -24.86%. 𝕏

7. Data-center power M&A: nVent to acquire Maverick Power for $1.75bn. @zerohedge reported the deal by the maker of cabinets and racks for data centers; $NVT bucked the tape to close +0.90% at $153.35 — a rare green print in the AI hardware complex. 𝕏

8. Hedge funds dumped US equities last week at the fastest pace since "Liberation Day" in April 2025. @KobeissiLetter and @zerohedge both reported: "9 of 11 sectors were sold, led by Information Technology, Industrials, Utilities, Health Care, and Materials," with only Energy and a sliver of Consumer Discretionary bought. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

2. Institutional & Media Coverage

Factual reporting

• Treasury doubles buybacks, but long yields haven't budged (@KobeissiLetter): "The US Treasury Has Now: 1. Announced that Treasury buybacks would double from $2 billion to $4 billion... Meanwhile, the 10Y Note Yield is still ABOVE levels seen prior to their initial announcement on August 19th. This is going to be a long battle." 𝕏

• August Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index hits highest since April 2021 (@KobeissiLetter): current business conditions rose 6.0 points to 47.4; future business conditions jumped 39.2 points to 73.6, the highest reading and largest single-month gain since the 1980s. 𝕏

• US gasoline prices at a record for this point in the year (@charliebilello): "US gas prices are climbing again, hitting $4.10/gallon this week. That's the highest level ever for this point in August." 𝕏

• Equity-vs-bond yield relationship near an extreme (@KobeissiLetter): only ~3% of S&P 500 stocks now yield more than the 10Y Treasury, the lowest share since May 2007. 𝕏

• ETF flows rotate into gold and Treasuries (@ExanteData): the largest absolute 7-day flows were IVV (-$8.5bn), VOO (+$4.3bn), GLD (+$3.4bn), XLF (-$1.8bn), QQQ (-$1.8bn); by sector, "the largest inflows compared to their averages include Gold and Treasury, while outflows are being seen in Large Cap and Financials." 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

• Amazon's driverless fleet hits San Francisco streets (@StockMKTNewz): "Amazon's newest self-driving cars without a steering wheel have started hitting the streets in San Francisco." $AMZN closed +1.33% at $262.07, a relative outperformer among megacaps. 𝕏

Views & analysis

• BTIG: watch gold first (via @zerohedge): "Respect Gold's Message: BTIG Asks 'Who Blinks First — Bonds Or Stocks?'" 𝕏

• AI capex may not be a GDP tailwind (@LizAnnSonders, Schwab Chief Investment Strategist): "massive corporate spending on semiconductors/infrastructure is driving imports (Asian chip manufacturing); U.S. export benefits remain muted. Result? GDP's import/export equation shows drag despite investment boom." 𝕏

• The bond market's problem is "persistent" inflation (@biancoresearch): "the bond market is troubled by 'persistent' inflation above 2% and core PCE above 3% that are not being addressed... The 5-year TIPS inflation breakeven rate has averaged 73 basis points higher post-COVID than pre-GFC." 𝕏

• The cost of crowding (@EricBalchunas, Bloomberg ETF analyst): "the stocks most heavily bought by both [passive and active] groups lagged similar-size peers by about 6% over the following year, with the biggest penalties in small and mid-caps." 𝕏

• China assets: policy may turn modestly accommodative (@cnfinancewatch relaying broker views): China Investment Securities argues A-shares show "clear policy support intent, but incremental capital has yet to coalesce; the stock-game character is evident, and an index breakout needs a stronger catalyst." The same account relayed UBS Securities' view that property easing is essentially "returning the choice to buy a home to households." Engagement on this account is low (single digits to tens of likes) — treat as reference only. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

3. KOL Bull & Bear Views

Index / Macro

Bullish

• @RyanDetrick (≈384 likes / 37 reposts): "S&P 500 above the June peak combined with the S&P 500 A/D line above the uptrend line and you have to lean bullish here. If both of these break, we could be ready for that Aug/Sept midterm year trouble everyone keeps expecting." 𝕏

Bearish / Cautious

• @KobeissiLetter (≈4,946 likes / 550 reposts): Treasury intervention isn't working at the long end — "This is going to be a long battle," implying rate pressure remains the overhang for equities. 𝕏
• @KobeissiLetter (≈846 likes / 137 reposts): hedge fund selling at the fastest pace since Liberation Day, 9 of 11 sectors sold. 𝕏
• @charliebilello (≈290 likes / 68 reposts): record gasoline prices for the date — "Another reminder that the inflation problem is far from over." 𝕏
• @CheddarFlow (≈138 likes / 10 reposts): "$SPY still has a substantial amount of NEGATIVE gamma exposure $4 BILLION @ 765 + $1.3B @ 764" — negative gamma means dealer hedging amplifies downside. A second post (≈27 likes) noted intraday: "The only filter in the above image is >$500K in premium. Not a bullish $SPX order in sight for the past hour." 𝕏¹ 𝕏²

Semiconductors / AI ($NVDA $MU $TSM)

Bullish

• @Beth_Kindig (≈161 likes / 17 reposts): "Revenue at the top five largest public NAND firms rose 77% QoQ in Q2, per TrendForce, led by a 99% QoQ increase at Micron $MU and a 90% QoQ increase in revenue at SK Hynix." A second post (≈79 likes) cited ADI CEO Vincent Roche: "there's expected to be 100 gigawatts equivalent infrastructure built for data centers between now and kind of 2031." Note: $MU nonetheless closed -5.83% at $910.43 — a strong fundamental narrative, but a sharply lower stock on the day. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²
• @dnystedt (≈104 likes / 17 reposts): Largan Precision has reportedly completed end-to-end CPO module development — "Mass Production: Expected 2nd-half 2027 (potential supply for Nvidia's Rubin Ultra platform)." A second post (≈87 likes) reports TSMC will spend NT$30bn to buy two AUO panel plants and convert them into large-size advanced packaging fabs (CoPoS / FOPLP). Both labelled "Rumor" by the author and unconfirmed by the companies. 𝕏¹ 𝕏²
• @SKundojjala (≈47 likes / 9 reposts): "Foundry industry was nearly $220B annual run-rate in 2Q26 and $245B+ in 3Q26. Foundry utilization inflected to 90% from 85%." 𝕏
• @jukan05 (≈305 likes / 21 reposts): per a Samsung slide, "HBM4E has been confirmed at 16 Gbps." 𝕏

Bearish / Cautious

• @PatrickMoorhead (≈8 likes, 3.6k views): frames the print around four open questions — "$NVDA answers on demand, supply, financing, and margins. Bloomberg reports AI server prices rising more than 15 percent on memory costs." Rising memory costs are eating into AI server economics, borne by the buyer. 𝕏
• @IanCutress (≈125 likes / 16 reposts): HBM-on-logic thermals are a hard engineering constraint — "The two biggest ways to solve this are merging HBM stacks (20C) and reducing XPU frequency by half (20C)." Halving frequency for 20°C is not a cheap trade. 𝕏
• @spotgamma (277 views): options pricing is oddly calm — "it means that the market isnt pricing in much risk into NVDA & JHOLE this week. Interestingly the previous IV highs was pricing in a lot of AI right tail risk (huge upside moves)." 𝕏

Hong Kong / China Assets

No substantive posts on the Hang Seng or China ADRs were retrieved from the English-language China-asset KOL group (@HAOHONG_CFA, @michaelxpettis, @glennluk, @ChinaBeigeBook and others) in the past 24 hours, so this section is kept short. Only @cnfinancewatch relayed several Chinese-language broker views (covered in Section 2), with engagement in the single digits to tens of likes — insufficient to represent market sentiment. The dominant driver in Hong Kong on the day was the technical pressure from Alibaba's placement, not a shift in narrative.

4. Buzz & Sentiment Shifts

US indices: Chatter is running well above normal, but almost entirely absorbed by the triple event week — NVIDIA earnings Wednesday, Jackson Hole, and core PCE — which @zerohedge simply labelled a "Pivotal Week." Sentiment turned clearly more cautious versus Friday: Friday was a broad rally with the Dow up 517 points and all three indices higher; Monday became a Dow-only tape (+0.26%) with the Nasdaq down -0.76%. Two drivers: the widely-shared report of the largest hedge fund selling since Liberation Day (@KobeissiLetter's post drew nearly 850 likes), and the failure of expanded Treasury buybacks to bring long yields down, which pushed rate anxiety back to the front. The bull/bear balance tilts bearish — the bearish side (KobeissiLetter, charliebilello, CheddarFlow) carries materially higher engagement than the bullish side (RyanDetrick's single post at 384 likes).

Semiconductors / AI: the highest-buzz sector in the market, but showing an unusual divergence between narrative and price. Fundamental posts skew almost entirely bullish — NAND +77% QoQ, foundry utilization to 90%, HBM4E confirmed at 16Gbps, CPO supply chain rumors — yet $MU -5.83%, $AMD -3.49%, $AVGO -2.63% and $NVDA -2.91% all fell. The debate has shifted from "is AI demand real" to "whose margin does memory inflation consume" (@PatrickMoorhead's 15% server price increase) and "what are the physical thermal limits" (@IanCutress). The density of these cost-side objections ahead of the NVIDIA print is noticeably higher than last week.

Hong Kong / China ADRs: buzz is sharply asymmetric between Chinese and English-language contexts — Hong Kong's largest single-day drawdown (-1.89%) drew almost no real-time discussion on X, with English KOL attention to the Hang Seng at a low. What was discussed was the Alibaba US$10.2bn placement as an event, reported by US-focused newsflow accounts like @zerohedge, rather than the HK index itself. Sentiment-wise, the placement's 8.5% impact plus Tencent -3.72% and Xiaomi -4.14% erased in one session the optimism built up by Friday's five-day streak and +1.39% Tech Index. China ADRs held up better ($BABA -0.73%, $PDD -1.48%), indicating the pressure is a local Hong Kong supply shock rather than a fundamental re-rating.

5. US Options Flow

Deeper reads

First, NVDA's options structure is a barbell — short-dated speculation plus long-dated insurance. The 4-day $210 call (IV 72%, vol/OI 5.5) is a classic earnings-week directional bet, yet the two largest premium prints are the 144-day $180 put and the 297-day $140 put, together over $135m at IV of 41–44%. Large accounts want the upside on Wednesday while simultaneously buying deep OTM downside cover for the window after the print — precisely the margin-and-financing concern @PatrickMoorhead raised in Section 3. Note @spotgamma's observation that near-dated IV isn't pricing much risk into this week, while the long-dated put build is aggressive: the worry isn't this quarter, it's the durability of AI capex beyond it.

Second, GLD calls dominate the day's premium. The $430 call (vol/OI 8.0) and $380 call (vol/OI 4.8) are both unambiguously new positions, totalling over $230m in premium. This lines up exactly with @ExanteData's report of $3.4bn of 7-day GLD inflows and the rotation "into Gold and Treasury, out of Large Cap and Financials," and echoes the BTIG note relayed by @zerohedge ("Respect Gold's Message"). Capital in equities and in gold is visibly diverging.

Third, MU's deep ITM calls are the day's most counterintuitive print. The $800 call against a $909.78 spot, with vol/OI at 26.4, is essentially a synthetic long — built against the tape on a day the stock fell 5.83%, and directionally consistent with the +99% QoQ NAND figure @Beth_Kindig highlighted. At 66% IV that volatility is not cheap; paying it implies real conviction on the memory cycle.

Overall sentiment: market-wide Put/Call premium ratio at 0.75, still in bullish territory — but the composition warrants a discount. The bulk of the "bullish" premium sits in GLD calls (a safe-haven asset), while the single largest single-stock print is a long-dated NVDA put. Nominally bullish; substantively a "buy gold, insure tech" posture.

Disclaimer: This report is compiled from publicly available information and live search results, and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any security, nor is it tailored to any individual investor's financial situation or objectives. Content from X reflects the views of the original posters and not those of this platform; items labelled "Rumor" are unconfirmed by the companies involved. Markets carry risk; invest with caution.