Buybacks have begun

FWIW
Given the historical strong preference for A shares, the buybacks were on Wednesday when the market price range was $724750 to $733500.

That represents a range of 1.453 to 1.470 times freshly known book per share. So we know that their current cutoff above which they wouldn't buy, if there is one, is 1.47 or lower.

Speculations:
Since this is an unusually public and precise peek into their thinking, Wednesday's price range might be considered a bit of a floor by a lot of people. Same with that price/book ratio, to an extent.

The price can and will certainly drop lower during panicky days since it's such a big part of cap weighted indexes, but those dips probably won't last. Under normal circumstances it's unusual to have such a clear signal about fair value. When they announced the "1.2 times book" target a few years ago it almost never traded below that again.

No big surprise, price up $10k in pre market. Perhaps more surprising is merely seeing A shares trade hands at all in pre market : )

Jim