Asian equities ended the week on a high note, as Mainland China and Hong Kong outperformed and the Philippines underperformed.

China is guiding local mutual funds and insurers to boost investments into stocks in the government’s latest initiative to shore up its ailing equity market.

The CSI300 Index has dropped roughly 5% since Trump won the election on Nov. 5 with a threat to impose steep tariffs of 60% on Chinese goods, but had already rebounded over the past week amid gestures of goodwill between Beijing and Washington.

On Monday, Hong Kong-listed growth stocks had a strong day, as the Hang Seng Index gained +1.75% and the Hang Seng Tech Index gained +2.59% following U.S. President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping’s Friday phone call that took place after Asia markets closed and before the U.S. markets opened.

China on Thursday detailed measures to encourage state-owned funds and insurers to buy more shares, aimed at stabilizing the struggling stock market at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to announce tariffs on Chinese imports.

China announced plans on Thursday to channel hundreds of billions of yuan annually into shares from state-owned insurers, in the authorities' latest effort to support equity markets. Authorities will in the first half of this year call on insurers to invest at least 100 billion yuan ($13.

Starting this year, major Chinese state-owned insurance companies will "strive to" invest 30% of their new premium income in mainland-listed stocks, Wu Qing, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, told reporters. He said this should pump "hundreds of billions of yuan of new long-term funds" into the stock market.

State-owned insurers and mutual funds are expected to play a pivotal role in the process of stabilizing the stock market.

Day-trader Lu Delong's optimism for a China stocks rally quickly evaporated in the first week of the year when, just three months after positioning for a surge fuelled by Beijing's stimulus pledges, he was forced to dump shares and tally his losses.

Beijing is seeing diminishing returns on repeated attempts to reinvigorate the market, as investors worry about harder-to-control economic fundamentals, like weak consumer spending and the prolonged property crunch.