HK Stock Market Move | Insurance stocks are performing strongly, with data exceeding expectations in the first quarter of 2026. Term deposits are expected to shift towards insurance allocation.

Domestic insurance stocks performed strongly, as of the time of writing, Ping An Insurance (02318) rose 2.85% to HK$70.45; PICC P&C (02328) rose 2.52% to HK$16.66; China Life Insurance (02628) rose 2.32% to HK$32.62; New China Life Insurance (01336) rose 2.14% to HK$62.15. Huaxi issued a research report stating that the data for the New Year in 2026 exceeded expectations, which directly catalyzed the current round of increase in insurance stocks. According to disclosures today, some leading insurance companies had a cumulative new business scale growth of over 70% year-on-year in the first three days of the New Year in 2026. Coupled with the low base of the same period last year, leading insurance companies showed strong momentum in the New Year of this year. The bank believes that insurance products, with their relative yield advantages, are expected to attract some asset reallocation. In addition, concerns about interest rate spread losses have significantly eased, and factors suppressing sector valuations are gradually being eliminated. Sinolink pointed out that the migration of banking and insurance services is expected to bring about high growth in the sector, and will become the main driving force for new business value (NBV) growth in 2026. After the epidemic, residents have increased their precautionary savings, with new deposits by residents since 2020 mostly exceeding 10 trillion yuan. Among them, the new deposits by residents in 2021, 2023, and 2024 were 9.9, 16.67, and 14.26 trillion yuan respectively. It is expected that a large portion of these early deposits with high interest rates will mature in 2026. Against the backdrop of declining deposit rates and a shortage of medium and long-term deposit supply, it is expected that maturing deposits of 2/3/5 years will transfer to insurance products.