China and Hong Kong stocks slid to their lowest levels in two months on Monday, tracking a global tech selloff, but pared losses by midday with some investors using the correction as a buying opportunity.China's blue-chip CSI300 Index fell to its lowest level since April 16 at the open but trimmed losses to 1.7 percent by midday. The Shanghai Composite Index touched its lowest since April 8 before paring declines to 1.3 percent. In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index dropped 1.2 percent to its lowest level since late March.
Having experienced the March sell-off when the Iran war triggered a global market rout not long ago, market participants are more confident they will be able to ride out short-term volatility this time.
"The market opened lower as expected, and then performed much better than expectations," said Wu Zhou, fund manager at Shenzhen Deyuan Investment Co. "There's ample liquidity in the domestic market, and investors today are shifting money away from expensive stocks to relatively cheap ones, such as robotics."
Li Qiusuo, chief domestic strategy analyst at CICC, said in an investor call that the market remained in a short-term correction phase but noted the Shanghai Composite had now retraced most of its year-to-date gains, having risen more than 7 percent at its peak.
