MINIMAX Bounces Off Post-Dilution Lows as MiniMax Heads Into WAIC

The Bounce Has a Date on the Calendar

MINIMAX is up 11.57% over 24 hours to $34.17, and the move isn't coming out of nowhere — it's positioning ahead of WAIC 2026, Shanghai's World Artificial Intelligence Conference running July 17-20. Chinese model names have been catching a bid into the show, with MiniMax and Zhipu both climbing more than 8% as the sector re-rated. The underlying Hong Kong line, 0100.HK, closed up double digits near HK$264 versus a HK$230 prior close, which maps cleanly onto the perp's ~$34 print at the roughly 7.8 USD/HKD peg. MiniMax is slated to be among the names showcasing new models at the record-size conference, and a friendlier macro tape — softer US inflation data and a semiconductor rebound — gave the whole complex cover to bounce. Call it what it is: a relief rally into a catalyst, not a fundamental repricing.

The Overhang That Hasn't Moved

Nothing about this bounce erases how the stock got here. MiniMax spent the last week absorbing its first lock-up expiry — the unlock freed roughly 146 million shares, about 63% of the Hong Kong listing — and then compounded it with a HK$14.54 billion (~$1.9 billion) capital raise, pairing 30 million new shares placed at a 9.9% discount with HK$6.5 billion of convertibles. The result was brutal: the market cap has collapsed roughly 80% from a HK$410 billion peak to around HK$81.8 billion as the free float ballooned toward 50%. The HK$268 placement price still anchors the tape below where the perp had been holding before the crater, and the convertible layers on a second overhang at a HK$335 strike. Even after today's move, the stock is down more than 70% from its March high. A one-day bounce doesn't retire that supply.

Why the Street Still Prints HK$860

The bull case is why this keeps finding buyers under $35. In early July, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citi issued simultaneous Buy ratings, with targets of HK$860, HK$500 and HK$533 — the top of that range is roughly triple the current Hong Kong level. The fundamental hook is real product traction: MiniMax's M3 model reportedly ranks third globally on OpenRouter with 17.3 trillion token calls, and the company is said to be readying M3Pro, a 2.7-trillion-parameter open-source model for Q3 — roughly six times the size of the 428-billion-parameter M3. Management has guided annual recurring revenue from $400 million in April toward a $1 billion year-end target, and strategic holders Alibaba (12.65%) and miHoYo (5.11%) publicly pledged to hold through the unlock. Whether the M3 showcase at WAIC converts that narrative into sustained demand — or just hands freed-up holders a better exit — is the question the next few sessions answer.