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The resilience of the capital market lies in the ability of listed companies as a group to keep creating value. Judging from recent announcements by A-share companies, signals of corporate quality improvement are being released intensively: third-quarter results are frequently beating expectations, the camp of interim dividend payers continues to expand, large buybacks and shareholder increases are landing one after another, hard-tech companies keep raising research and development investment, and many companies are focusing on their main businesses to carry out industrial chain integration. A series of visible achievements shows that listed company quality improvement is moving from external policy guidance toward stronger internal momentum.
A single company improving its quality is only the first step in strengthening market resilience. It is also necessary to promote the structural optimization of the listed company group through industrial upgrading and the survival of the fittest, and to rely on institutional reform to further build a virtuous cycle between investment and financing, forming a quality improvement path that advances from point to surface and layer by layer, so as to consolidate the internal foundation for the long-term stable operation of the A-share market.
Corporate quality improvement strengthens the micro foundation
The foundation of market resilience lies in the operating capacity of listed companies themselves. To evaluate the quality of a company's operations, one should not only look at the book growth rate of revenue and profit, but also at the gold content of profitability, that is, stable main business income, abundant operating cash flow, and sustainable and predictable shareholder returns.
From the perspective of overall profitability, since the start of this year, the operating base of A-share listed companies has continued to be solid. Data released by the China Association for Public Companies shows that in the first half of the year, listed companies across the market achieved operating revenue of 37.76 trillion yuan, up 7.6 percent year on year, and achieved net profit of 3.58 trillion yuan, up 19.5 percent year on year, with the growth rate increasing by 16.7 percentage points compared with the whole of the previous year.
At the same time, judging from the third-quarter 2026 earnings forecasts disclosed recently one after another, the operating trend of A-share listed companies continues to improve and internal momentum keeps recovering. Wind data shows that as of the reporter's deadline on October 16, a total of 137 A-share companies had disclosed third-quarter earnings forecasts, and companies with positive earnings expectations, including those turning losses into profits, slightly increasing, or forecasting higher profits, accounted for 84.78 percent. Among them, 63 companies are expected to see net profit growth of more than 100 percent year on year. Among these 63 companies, 19 are expected to see net profit growth of more than 500 percent year on year.
In the first three quarters of this year, in the face of changes in demand structure and fluctuations in raw material costs, many listed companies took the initiative to reduce costs and improve efficiency, focus on their main businesses, compress non-core businesses, and optimize asset and liability structures. They not only safeguarded the bottom line of corporate cash flow security, but also strengthened the resilience foundation of the A-share market.
While operations stabilized, the awareness of listed companies to return to shareholders increased significantly, with dividends and buybacks becoming regular choices, and large cash dividends from leading companies appearing frequently. At the same time, many technology growth companies proactively launched cancellation-style buyback plans after performance improved, using real money to reward investors and increase long-term holding returns. Wind data shows that from the start of this year to October 16, based on the equity registration date, 3,723 A-share companies had paid total cash dividends of more than 2 trillion yuan, and the full-year dividend total is expected to reach a new level.
Cheng Fengchao, a member of the academic advisory committee of the China Association for Public Companies and president of the Zhongguancun Guorui Financial and Industrial Development Research Association, said in an interview with Securities Daily that the quality of listed companies is the anchor for long-term pricing in the capital market. Observing the sample of disclosed third-quarter earnings forecasts, the profit recovery of listed companies shows broad coverage. At the same time, innovation-driven growth potential continues to translate into real operating performance for enterprises, and hard-tech companies are gradually entering a period of performance realization. In addition, listed companies continue to place greater emphasis on investor returns, cash dividends and share buybacks remain at high levels, and the proportion of companies paying dividends continuously is rising steadily. When the above dimensions improve simultaneously, investors will reassess the safety margin and earnings certainty of A-share companies.
Industrial iteration drives structural renewal
The solid performance of a single enterprise is not enough to support the long-term resilience of the entire A-share market. Continuously advancing metabolism and industrial iteration is the key for the A-share market to resist systemic risks and amplify growth elasticity.
In recent years, the capital market has insisted on strictly controlling quality at the entry end, implementing delisting as required at the exit end, and revitalizing existing assets through mergers and acquisitions and restructuring, promoting the orderly conversion of old and new growth drivers, so that the overall industrial structure of the market continues to improve.
The entry point of issuance and listing has continued to tilt toward technological innovation, optimizing the quality of listed company supply from the source. In particular, the positioning of the STAR Market and ChiNext around hard technology and innovative growth has attracted a group of companies with high research and development investment and strong technical barriers, and industrial clusters in new quality productive forces tracks are accelerating their formation. Wind data shows that so far this year, 128 companies have successfully completed IPOs in the A-share market, of which 124 came from strategic emerging industries, involving high-end equipment, a new generation of information technology, biomedicine, new energy, new materials, and more. A large number of entities with core technologies and alignment with the direction of industrial upgrading have entered the A-share market, continuously expanding the echelon of hard-tech listed companies and injecting a steady stream of innovative vitality into the capital market.
Corresponding to quality improvement and capacity expansion at the entry end, the delisting mechanism at the exit end continues to exert force. Regulators resolutely clear out shell companies, zombie companies, and entities with major violations. Financial, trading, and major violation delisting channels are fully open, and behaviors such as financial fraud, inflated revenue, and illegal occupation of funds are subject to rigid constraints, continuously promoting the orderly exit of risky enterprises and reducing hidden systemic risks in the market. Since the start of this year, 22 companies have delisted from the A-share market, with reasons including failure to meet financial indicators, touching red lines in trading indicators, and mandatory delisting for major violations.
In this regard, Chen Li, a director of the China Chief Economist Forum, told Securities Daily that the squeezing out of low-quality entities and the gathering of high-quality entities form a joint force, jointly promoting the continuous improvement of the overall quality of the market. For existing listed companies, mergers and acquisitions and restructuring are important tools for integrating resources, transforming, and upgrading. Since the implementation of the six merger and acquisition measures, A-share companies have cumulatively disclosed 391 major asset restructuring transactions. Companies have successively focused on strengthening weak links and reinforcing chains in industrial chains. On the one hand, this helps traditional industries with digital transformation, and on the other hand, it promotes the integration of resources in emerging industries, avoids blind cross-industry speculation, and guides resources to gather in high-quality entities with core competitiveness.
Among them, traditional cyclical industries have achieved profit recovery through technological transformation and capacity optimization. Hard-tech tracks continue to release growth vitality, the industrial echelon has clear layers, and the impact of a single industry cycle is effectively dispersed. From an industrial perspective, since the start of this year, the revenue and profit growth of listed companies in high-tech manufacturing and strategic emerging industries has continued to lead, and a number of companies in traditional industries have also gained new vitality through mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and digital transformation. As industry experts have said, the structural change of A-share companies is essentially an improvement in the efficiency of resource allocation. Dong Zhongyun, chief economist of AVIC Securities, said that the enhancement of market resilience is not only dynamic stability in metabolism, but also a systematic improvement in risk resistance brought by the leap of industrial structure toward higher added value.
Investment and financing circulation realizes value
The formation of A-share market resilience requires not only solid fundamentals at the micro company level and a continuously optimized industrial structure, but also a stable and predictable institutional system that translates corporate value into stable market pricing and guides long-term funds to engage in long-term investment and value investment, thereby building a positive cycle of market self-reinforcement.
In recent years, capital market reform has continued to exert force: on the one hand, it has built diverse communication bridges to promote the efficient reach of the true value of listed companies to domestic and overseas investors; on the other hand, it has deepened investment-side construction, cultivated long-term capital undertaking forces, opened up the closed loop from corporate fundamentals to market valuation, and allowed quality improvement results to truly reflect in the pricing system.
Although high-quality listed companies have solid main businesses and innovative strength, this does not mean they can obtain full pricing. Some companies still have a value mismatch of good fundamentals but low valuation, and information transmission barriers and cross-market cognitive differences can easily cause investors to misunderstand a company's core competitiveness and long-term growth space. To this end, regulators continue to organize domestic and overseas collective roadshows and face-to-face exchanges between institutions and enterprises, building a direct dialogue bridge between listed companies and global capital. For example, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange recently held the first roadshow event of the Global Journey of Listed Companies in London, the United Kingdom. It is understood that the Global Journey of Listed Companies is an international service brand activity for listed companies upgraded and created by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on the basis of the exchange plus listed company overseas roadshow work.
In Cheng Fengchao's view, through concentrated roadshows and one-on-one institutional interviews, it is possible to clearly explain to long-term funds such as pension funds and overseas asset management institutions the technical barriers, industrial tracks, and profit logic of enterprises, dissolve information gaps, and allow domestic and overseas investors to directly see the true value of A-share listed companies.
After the true value of an enterprise is seen, it needs supporting mechanisms on the investment side to undertake it and complete value realization. In recent years, the capital market has continued to deepen investment-side reform, focusing on cultivating a long-term capital team and opening up blockages for medium- and long-term funds entering the market. Chen Li said that as the proportion of long-term funds steadily increases, institutional investors can deeply participate in the governance of listed companies and rely on professional capabilities to constrain corporate operations, thereby promoting listed companies to continuously improve development quality and building a positive cycle in which enterprises create value, the market discovers value, funds recognize and invest, and enterprises reinvest and create greater value.
The resilience of the A-share market comes from the real cash flow of listed companies, from the industrial upgrading brought by economic structural transformation, and even more from the virtuous cycle ecology formed by the continued deepening reform of the capital market, as well as the fundamentals of China's long-term positive economy. In the short term, fluctuations in investor sentiment and market volatility are unavoidable, but from a longer perspective, the direction of listed company quality improvement is clear, the upward trend remains unchanged, and this is providing the most solid support for the smooth operation of the market.
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