Opening data from October 21 shows the Shanghai Composite opened 0.14% higher at 3740.57 points, the Shenzhen Component opened 0.32% higher at 11838.79 points, and the ChiNext Index opened 0.28% higher at 2746.84 points. The STAR 50 opened 1.06% higher at 1356.63 points. As of 9:37 AM, a total of 3958 stocks in the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets advanced, 1225 declined, and 190 remained flat.
Leading the gains were publishing, digital media, advertising and marketing, film and cinema, AI corpus concepts, short-drama interactive game concepts, as well as fisheries and communication equipment. Leading the declines were express delivery, telecom operators, lithium batteries, and robot actuator concepts.
In terms of market action, the Shanghai Composite opened 0.14% higher, while the Shenzhen Component and ChiNext opened 0.32% and 0.28% higher respectively, and the STAR 50 opened 1.06% higher. After the open, the opening gains across the indexes quickly narrowed. As of 9:37 AM, the Shanghai Composite stood at 3733.27 points, down 0.06% from the previous trading day's close, the Shenzhen Component was up 0.19%, the ChiNext was down 0.21%, and the STAR 50 was up 1.13%, showing a divergence in performance between the Shanghai and Shenzhen main boards and the STAR market direction.
Media sub-sectors led the gains, with publishing, digital media, advertising and marketing, and film and cinema among the top performers, followed by concepts such as digital reading and online gaming. The fisheries sector topped the industry gainers list with a 3.40% rise, while communication equipment followed with a 2.19% gain. Express delivery fell 1.76% to lead the decliners, telecom operator stocks all dropped more than 1%, and the lithium battery sector fell nearly 5%, with CATL plunging over 9% after its earnings report to lead the decline. The robot concept showed internal divergence, with the robot actuator direction falling 1.4%. As of 9:37 AM, there were 22 limit-up stocks and 0 limit-down stocks in the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets, with advancing stocks accounting for about 74% of the total.
In overnight news, U.S. stocks closed mixed: the Dow rose 1.02% to 52495.88 points, the S&P 500 rose 0.28% to 7712.57 points, and the Nasdaq fell 0.02% to 26424.82 points. Among the eleven major S&P sectors, nine advanced and two declined, with the healthcare sector leading gains at 2.34%, the communication services sector falling 0.89%, and international oil prices dropping 1.8%.
On October 19, the Financial Street Forum released a concentrated set of policies: the central bank stated it would establish a liquidity support tool to address large-scale redemptions by non-bank institutions, expand the scope of institutions eligible for the SLF to include domestic foreign-funded legal-person banks, and study the timing to switch the main open market operation tenor to overnight, making the overnight repo rate the primary policy rate. The securities regulator approved the registration of the first batch of 18 active ETFs, and the Beijing Stock Exchange 50 ETF will be steadily introduced. On the same day, the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Technology-Driven Commerce," proposing to deeply implement the "AI plus manufacturing" special action, promote deep integration of AI technology with product research and development, design, manufacturing, and marketing, and enrich the supply of smart goods such as smartphones, wearable devices, and robots.
In terms of trend assessment, after the open, the indexes' opening gains quickly narrowed, with the Shanghai Composite falling below the flat line during intraday trading, while the STAR 50 was relatively resilient. Publishing and digital media led gains in the media direction, while robot actuators, lithium batteries, and express delivery weakened. The divergence between indexes and individual stocks became fairly clear within the first half hour of trading. The drivers came from both policy and overseas directions: the measures rolled out at the Financial Street Forum focused on interest rate marketization and basic capital market systems, while the Nasdaq's slight overnight decline of 0.02% meant overseas tech stocks provided no additional momentum. The STAR market's higher opening was more supported by industrial data 鈥?the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology disclosed at an October 20 press conference that as of the end of September 2026, China's intelligent computing power scale reached 2592 EFLOPS, up 146% year-on-year. CATL's sharp stock price drop after its third-quarter report was the main variable weighing on the ChiNext Index and the battery industry chain. Before trading volume noticeably expands, the indexes may continue to consolidate, and the sustainability of theme rotation remains to be seen.
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