According to Insightful Beating monitoring, the Hong Kong stock market is witnessing a surge in pair trades around Chinese AI large models. Since the end of March, Intellectstock has risen by 170%, while MiniMax has dropped by about 50%. Although both companies have seen gains since their January IPOs, Intellectstock's over 1500% year-to-date increase far outpaces its counterpart. As the global AI companies rush to go public, investors' scrutiny of large model profitability continues to tighten, leading to highly divergent capital flows.

HSBC estimates that on July 8th, MiniMax will unlock 65% of its shares, while Intellectstock will only unlock 6% on July 7th. The significant unlock discrepancy has substantially increased MiniMax's short-selling chip, with analysts expecting the pair trade to accelerate in early July.

Divergence in performance and model quality is the main driver. This year, Intellectstock has raised the price of its GLM model while maintaining sales volume, whereas MiniMax slashed the price of its flagship model M3 by 50% a week after its release to attract customers. This price reduction has raised profit concerns, leading to Goldman Sachs cutting MiniMax's target price by 14%. Meanwhile, JPMorgan raised Intellectstock's target price but downgraded MiniMax, stating that the price cut reflects weaker-than-expected model competitiveness. Gavekal Capital points out that Intellectstock's model is superior and has better profit potential, making it difficult for MiniMax to become a leading platform.

Geopolitics also present opportunities. U.S. restrictions on exporting Anthropic models have redirected funds to Chinese manufacturers. Intellectstock released its latest open-source model this week, driving a price surge of over 70%. Although Bank of America Securities initiated coverage on both Intellectstock and MiniMax with buy ratings, anticipating a post-unlock rally for MiniMax, both companies still face downward pricing pressure from DeepSeek's low-cost competition and potential IPO peers like Moonshot AI diverting funds.