The Tencent Holdings Ltd. building stands in the Nanshan district in Shenzhen, China. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s equity traders can’t get enough of Tencent Holdings Ltd, the US$950 billion giant that’s on pace for its biggest ever monthly gain.

They’re paying up for bullish derivatives tracking the Chinese mainland internet firm, buying thousands of January call options that expire Thursday. The price of one Tencent contract -- which bets the stock will rise past HK$800 by expiry -- surged as much as 118,300 percent on Monday. Traders also rushed to offload their bearish puts, with one of the most-traded contracts losing more than 84 percent in value.

The stock rallied 11 percent on Monday to HK$766.50, its biggest gain since October 2011. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index benchmark rose 2.4 percent, closing above the key 30,000 point-level for the first time since May 2019

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The stock rallied 11 percent on Monday to HK$766.50, its biggest gain since October 2011. The HKSAR’s Hang Seng Index benchmark rose 2.4 percent, closing above the key 30,000 point-level for the first time since May 2019.

Tencent has become a prime target for mainland traders flooding record amounts of cash into HKSAR-listed shares this year, with net purchase of the stock accounting for roughly a quarter of total money coming in, according to exchange data. The buying frenzy has also boosted Tencent’s market value by about US$251 billion this year, the most worldwide, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla Inc is the second-largest gainer, up US$134 billion.

Tencent shares now trade at nearly 40 times analysts’ estimated earnings for the next 12 months. While that’s well above the average of 30 since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 2005, it’s still below the recent peak multiple of 42 reached in 2014 and 2018.

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On Monday, analysts at Citigroup Inc lifted their target price on the firm by 19 percent to HK$876, the highest among analysts tracked by Bloomberg, citing the company’s market-share expansion and growth in the gaming sector and other digital businesses.

Tencent is also getting an additional boost from taking part in the city’s fast-growing initial public offering market. Kuaishou Technology, backed by Tencent, is seeking to raise as much as US$5.4 billion in the HKSAR in what would be the biggest internet IPO since Uber Technologies Inc.

With the recent run-up, Tencent is trading at its highest price on record. It’s largely avoided the tightening regulatory oversight that sparked a selloff in rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and forced its part-owned Ant Group Co to jettison a record IPO.