Hong Hao’s Chinese social media accounts have been blocked following the outspoken analyst’s recent bearish reports on the country for unspecified violations.
Hong has recently issued bearish forecasts, and his social media posts about the lockdowns are now being censored.
His WeChat public account, “Hong Hao’s China Market Strategy,” has been deactivated since at least late Saturday. According to a notice posted on the account, all contents on the account have been blocked due to violations of WeChat’s public account service rules. His Weibo account, which has over 3 million followers, was still active on Saturday afternoon but suspended.
While it’s unclear which of Hong’s posts crossed the line, China has recently censored social media posts about economically disruptive lockdowns. Last week, the benchmark CSI 300 Index fell to a two-year low, making it one of the world’s worst-performing equity indices this year, down 19%. This hasn’t stopped the state-controlled media from publishing a slew of articles exuding market optimism. Hong is a star analyst on traditional and social media, and he frequently appears on financial news outlets such as Bloomberg TV and CNBC.
Hong predicted in a March 21 report that the Shanghai Composite Index would trade between 3,200 and 3,800, with a possible drop below 3,000 in the worst-case scenario. On April 27, the index fell to 2,863.6 before closing at 3,047.06 on April 29.
Hong also blamed the drop in Chinese ADRs on China’s crackdown on technology firms, predicting lower valuations and possible capital flight as a result of regulatory squabbles between Beijing and Washington.
Last year, Tencent Holdings Ltd. imposed a rare ban on over 1,000 WeChat accounts in response to China’s crackdown on commercial platforms and social media accounts that posted financial information deemed detrimental to the Chinese economy. Due to unspecified financial media irregularities, 1,463 WeChat accounts were banned, including one run by Essence Securities Co.’s chief strategist Chen Guo.
According to social media posts on Friday, he was likely to be terminated and was being punished by the company for his bearish estimates on Chinese stocks. Hong has been at the company for 10 years.