Mainland stocks edged up in choppy trading on Monday as soft economic data and regulatory moves last week to cool the market rally kept sentiment muted.

In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index was down 281 points, or 1.05 percent, at 26,563 while the China enterprises index was down 86 points, or 0.94 percent, at 9,134 and the tech index was down 72 points, or 1.24 percent, at 5,749.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was up 12 points, or 0.29 percent, at 4,114, recovering some ground following a four-day losing streak, while the Shenzhen Component Index was up close to 13 points, or 0.09 percent, at 14,294.

The combined turnover of these two indices was 2.71 trillion yuan, down from 3.03 trillion yuan on Friday.

Hotel, tourism and aircraft manufacturing stocks led the gains, while the electronic information and financial sectors suffered major losses.

The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 23 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,337.

The Star Composite Index, which reflects the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 0.21 percent lower at 1,851.

Fresh data released on Monday showed China's economic growth came in at 4.5 percent in the last quarter while GDP growth showed resilience in 2025 overall, with the full-year pace meeting the official target.

The data came after China's central ⁠bank last week cut sector-specific interest rates, while keeping the door open for further reductions in banks' cash reserve requirements and broader rate cuts in an early effort to boost demand.

"Today's economic data really wasn't a positive surprise," said Dickie Wong, head of research at uSmart Securities in Hong Kong.

"But since the People's Bank of China had already made it clear that there's still room for reserve requirement ratio cuts, they're basically giving everyone reassurance. We'll just have to see what they do going forward."

The relatively steady start to the week follows last week's declines, which snapped a start-of-the-year bull run after Beijing moved to cool sentiment.

China's securities regulator vowed on Friday to step up market monitoring and crack down on excessive speculation, after major bourses said that they would raise the minimum margin requirement for new borrowings to 100 percent from 80 percent.

The market consensus ⁠now is that Beijing wants to focus on supporting the real economy and consumption as geopolitical uncertainties remain, while taking some heat off frothy sectors to cool market sentiment before it gets out of hand, Wong said.

"Locals are expecting further normalisation this week across China A-shares" following the record trading volume of key benchmark ETFs, along with incremental guidance from regulators for a slow and long bull market, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note.

Among the major winners on Monday, the defence sector climbed 3.6 percent and satellite industry added 2.6 percent.

The real estate index gained 1.5 percent.

The AI sector weakened 1.3 percent while the banking sector declined 0.6 percent, weighing on the broader market. (Reuters/Xinhua)