US ISM new orders index (July) 56.7, matching consensus 56.7; prior 56.0.

The CSRC and Hong Kong's SFC jointly announced new measures to deepen pragmatic cooperation and tighter coordination between the mainland and Hong Kong markets, covering listings and fundraising, index collaboration, futures products, ETFs, internationalization of financial institutions, green finance and streamlined professional qualification recognition.

Hong Kong shares edged higher by midday; Hang Seng Index was up 0.04% and the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 0.74%. Large-cap tech led gains: Alibaba (09988.HK) jumped about 7% after launching the Qianwen Office public beta, Baidu (09888.HK) +4%, Tencent (00700.HK) +3%, JD (09618.HK) and Meituan (03690.HK) >1%; Xiaomi (01810.HK) fell about 4%. The State Administration for Market Regulation moved to curb 'involution', while photovoltaic stocks rallied—Concord New Energy (00182.HK) spiked as much as 17% intraday and Xunce (03317.HK) rallied nearly 13% post-results, leading AI application names higher. Memory semiconductor shares extended losses; mainland brokerages and nonferrous metal stocks declined.