"The 'unlocking will definitely drop' curse broken? Two major AI firms soar, Zhipu up 19%, Wall Street investment banks remain optimistic."

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The China AI large model sector has staged a counter-trend explosive rally in the Hong Kong stock market.

Zhihu has seen its first restricted stock unlock since its listing, and the usual "unlocking always leads to a drop" logic completely failed—its share price soared over 19% at one point on the day, while MiniMax surged about 17%. Analysts point out that the large unlocking did not trigger a liquidity stampede, as key institutional investors collectively expressed intentions for long-term holding. Mainstream Wall Street capital is forming systematic recognition of Chinese AI model companies.

Meanwhile, Wallstreetcn article writes that J.P. Morgan raised Zhihu’s target price from HKD 1800 to HKD 2000, maintaining an "overweight" rating; Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citi, three international investment banks, concurrently gave MiniMax a "buy" rating.

The strong performance of these two AI giants reflects the explosive rally across the Hong Kong tech sector. Today, the Hang Seng Tech Index opened high and continued to rise, posting gains of nearly 5%. Alibaba soared over 12%, Hua Hong Semiconductor over 10%, Lenovo Group over 9%, SMIC and Kuaishou over 8%, while Tencent Holdings jumped more than 4% at one point.

According to China Securities Journal, analysts believe there are two drivers for this strong performance in Hong Kong stocks: First, valuations are relatively low and attractive; second, funds from the globally troubled memory chip sector have flowed into the Hong Kong market. Meanwhile, Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the People's Bank of China, delivered a speech at the "Hong Kong Fixed Income and Currency Summit and Bond Connect Forum," outlining deployments in four directions: deepening financial market interconnectivity, supporting the prosperity of Hong Kong’s capital market, consolidating its position as an offshore RMB hub, and maintaining financial stability, thus providing policy-level support for market sentiment.

Unlocking Spell Broken: Institutions Express Collective Confidence, Market Completes Value Reassessment

Zhihu’s performance during this unlocking has shattered the long-standing expectation in A shares and Hong Kong stocks that unlocking always leads to decline.

This time, Zhihu unlocked a total of 25.6816 million restricted shares. International Investment Fund SPC under Beijing Financial Holdings Group, WT Asset Management, Optimas Capital Limited, as well as early shareholders and cornerstone investor Lingyun Optical Technology Co., Ltd., all expressed intention to hold long-term.

For MiniMax, its largest strategic shareholders Alibaba and miHoYo made clear their long-term optimism in late June, while the MiniMax founding team voluntarily set a 12-month lock-up period, longer than the industry standard of six months. The initial unlocking does not involve founder or employee holdings.

On the trading front, the surge was not simply driven by short-term trading sentiment, but by a concentrated release of market confidence in the company’s long-term value and capital attitude. Multiple core institutional investors publicly stated before and after the unlocking that they would continue to hold rather than cash out, effectively alleviating concerns about liquidity stampede.

J.P. Morgan’s rating upgrade provided important fundamental support for this rally. Wallstreetcn article writes that J.P. Morgan raised Zhihu’s target price until December 2026 from HKD 1800 to HKD 2000, maintaining an "overweight" rating. The core logic is that GLM-5.2 reinforces the assertion that "open weight commercialization can create considerable optionality value for leading model providers."

J.P. Morgan also pointed out that, based on current valuations, the market has basically priced in Zhihu’s guidance of USD 1 billion ARR by year-end, and remaining upward potential depends on whether strong open-weight models can achieve scale via external infrastructure and distribution channels.

For MiniMax, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citi all issued "buy" ratings at the same time, which is rare in the current market environment where the AI sector is becoming increasingly polarized.

Goldman Sachs set a target price of HKD 860 per share, with the report focusing on the changing pricing environment in China's AI sector. Goldman notes that DeepSeek V4 will soon introduce differentiated peak pricing, with peak API prices double those of off-peak, which signals a shift from the aggressive price war since late April 2026 toward rationality. In this context, the MiniMax M3 model, thanks to a higher proportion of self-built optimized computing power and a more efficient architecture with smaller activation parameters, enjoys significantly higher margins than peers.

Bank of America set a target price of HKD 500 per share, disclosing a key transformation in MiniMax's revenue structure: its revenue has shifted from a roughly 70% consumer product share last year to increased enterprise and cloud API business share, with enterprise/cloud API listed as a higher strategic priority. In terms of profitability, the previous generation M2.7 model ultimately achieved over 40% inference profit margin, and BofA expects long-term margin stability through ongoing infrastructure efficiency improvements. For computing power, MiniMax collaborates with global cloud service and new cloud vendors to serve overseas users with local computing, and can still steadily secure computing power.

Citi set a target price of HKD 533 per share, noting the current share price implies 53.8% expected upside, and forecasting that MiniMax’s revenue growth will remain strong. The upcoming new video model is expected to be a key catalyst for changing market sentiment.

Risk warning and disclaimerThe market has risks, investment needs caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the user's specific investment objectives, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article suit their circumstances. Investment is at your own risk. ```