HK Stock Market Move | SITC (01308) closes up more than 4% with expected full-year net profit growth of up to 19%. Morgan Stanley believes that the performance slightly exceeds expectations.

At the end of the day, SITC (01308) rose more than 4%, rising 4.42% to $30.22 Hong Kong dollars with a turnover of 157 million Hong Kong dollars as of publication. On the news front, SITC recently announced a profit surprise, with expected annual shareholders' attributable profit of approximately $1.2 billion to $1.23 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of about 16.0% to 18.9%. Morgan Stanley believes that the performance slightly exceeds market consensus, but expects market reaction to last year's profits to be limited. The bank believes that this year's prospects are mixed. It is worth noting that SITC recently announced further exercise of two shipbuilding options, demonstrating its strong confidence in the medium to long-term demand for feeder container ship market, especially in the Asian region. Together with the previous exercise of options, four new ships are scheduled to be delivered in September 2028, November 2028, January 2029, and March 2029 or earlier. This indicates that SITC's new capacity deployment plan has been extended to the next three to four years.