Macro and Market Highlights
China's July CPI rose 0.5% year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, maintaining a modest upward trend. The month-on-month CPI fell 0.1% due to international input factors, while the core CPI, excluding food and energy, increased 0.3% month-on-month and 0.9% year-on-year. For the first seven months of the year, the average CPI was 0.9% higher than the same period last year. Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 3.5% year-on-year in July but fell 0.7% month-on-month, with the year-on-year gain narrowing by 0.6 percentage points from the previous month.
Beijing has relaxed its property purchase rules for non-Beijing-resident families, reducing the required social insurance or personal income tax payment period from two years to one year for homes within the Fifth Ring Road. This change, effective from August 8, standardises the requirement to one year across the entire city. Additionally, the housing provident fund maximum loan amount has been moderately increased, with eligible families able to receive up to 2.4 million yuan for a first home purchase, and further increases of up to 1 million yuan available for those meeting multiple conditions, such as buying in green buildings or having more than two children.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) continued its gold buying spree for the 21st consecutive month, with gold reserves rising to 76.08 million ounces at the end of July, up from 75.44 million ounces at the end of June.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges are seeking public feedback on proposals to improve the exit mechanism for Listed Open-Ended Funds (LOFs). Under the draft rules, commodity futures LOFs and QDII LOFs must be delisted by the end of 2027, while other LOFs with net asset value below 10 million yuan for 60 consecutive trading days will also face mandatory termination.
In a significant expansion of the index matrix, 16 fund management companies have submitted applications for new ETFs tracking the ChiNext board's computing infrastructure and fintech sectors.
Industry News
SK Hynix has announced plans to invest approximately 54 trillion Korean won (about $38.4 billion) to build new wafer fabrication plants in Yongin and Cheongju, South Korea. The move is aimed at meeting the surging demand for memory chips in the AI era, with the company emphasising that delivering sufficient products on time is now a key competitive advantage.
The AI hardware price surge is impacting the 3C rental market, with rental demand doubling. However, some suppliers are reportedly disassembling graphics cards and memory modules to sell components individually, a strategy to quickly realise cash amid rising prices, with plans to repurchase them when prices fall.
Yushu Technology Co.,Ltd. will begin its IPO subscription on the STAR Market on August 10, marking a significant step for the embodied intelligence sector. This comes as the sector sees a wave of IPOs, with 51 companies queuing in Hong Kong and total financing in the robot sector reaching 121.7 billion yuan this year. Analysts view this IPO boom as a starting point for industry exploration that will accelerate the elimination of players unable to achieve a viable business model.
Wall Street investment firm Castle Securities analyst Scott Rubner has issued his first recommendation for 2026 to allocate structural gold exposure, citing five converging factors that could drive asymmetric upside for gold and silver. These include a dovish turn in Federal Reserve policy, accelerated central bank gold purchases, net short positions by CTA funds, bullish signals from the options market, and pent-up retail investor capital.
Company News
Apple has responded to the deletion of a support document titled "Using Qwen with Apple Intelligence on Mac," stating that it had not received any notification about the feature. The company clarified that the "Apple Intelligence using Qwen" function has not yet been launched in mainland China. The document, which had appeared on Apple's official website, was removed within 24 hours. In July, Alibaba said Qwen would be integrated into Apple Intelligence for users in China, covering iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.
Longsys Electronics (301308.SZ) has completed a 3.7 billion yuan private placement, issuing 6.6071 million shares at a price of 560 yuan per share. This price represents a 45% premium over the company's latest closing price of 386.6 yuan. The 21 investors include Yifang Fund, Jin Changjiang, Zhao Qixiang, and He Wei, with a six-month lock-up period.
Cambricon Technologies (688256.SH) reported a significant jump in first-half 2026 financials, with net profit attributable to shareholders reaching 2.311 billion yuan, a 122.61% increase year-on-year, driven by rising demand for AI computing power. The company's revenue surged 108.13% to 5.996 billion yuan. Notably, the company's accounts receivable and inventory levels have also risen sharply, with inventory accounting for 45.32% of total assets. The company's Q2 net profit of 1.298 billion yuan marked a 28% sequential increase from Q1. The company's shareholder list showed notable increases in holdings by well-known retail investor Zhang Wei and Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company (northbound capital) during the quarter.
Chaoying Electronics (603175.SH) has announced plans to invest 2.086 billion yuan to build a new high-layer and HDI printed circuit board (PCB) project in Huangshi, Hubei. The project is expected to break through the company's current production capacity bottlenecks, significantly enhancing its ability to supply high-end storage products and automotive electronics, while also adding some AI server PCB capacity.
Gaozheng Minbao (002827.SZ) has warned that if its stock price continues to fluctuate irrationally, it may apply for a trading halt for verification. The company, which has been placed under enhanced monitoring by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, clarified that its main business is civil explosives and blasting services, and it has not yet started any mining investment projects. It also stated that there are no specific plans for mining asset injections or major asset restructuring.
JP Morgan Chase has increased its stake in Zhongji Innolight's H-shares, raising its holding from 13.48% to 15.02% as of August 4, with an average purchase price of 1,150.8522 Hong Kong dollars.
Overseas News
US President Donald Trump has announced a $3 billion investment in critical minerals and battery projects, aiming to boost domestic production. Speaking at a roundtable with mining executives, Trump said the projects would create thousands of jobs and asserted that the US is reclaiming its position as a global mineral power.
Elon Musk stated on social media platform X that the third-generation Starlink V3 satellites, to be launched by Starship, are an order of magnitude more capable than the current V2 satellites. He added that the second-generation Starlink system is on track to generate $20 billion in annual recurring revenue this year, and the overall bandwidth of future systems could be 100 times greater than the current generation.
Berkshire Hathaway reported a second-quarter 2026 net profit attributable to shareholders of $25.667 billion, up from $12.370 billion a year earlier. Operating profit rose 16% to $12.983 billion. The company's cash reserves fell to $365.51 billion, and it repurchased approximately $4.5 billion of its own stock. The company's equity portfolio remains heavily concentrated, with 66% of the fair value in five companies: American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Alphabet, and Coca-Cola.
Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has stated that Iran is close to reaching an agreement with Oman on the management and legal mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz. The negotiations are focused on establishing a temporary navigation route to replace the existing traffic separation scheme, which Iran considers unacceptable. However, the reopening of the strait depends on other conditions, including the US making amends for violating the US-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Iraq's Oil Minister, Basim Mohammed Khudair, has reported that the country's oil exports have slumped by 75% due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq is in talks with Iran to allow its oil exports to resume, but the coordination has not yet taken effect. Prior to the conflict, Iraq exported about 3.4 million barrels per day through the strait.
The US economy added 23,000 fewer jobs than expected in July, with non-farm payrolls declining by 23,000 against market expectations of an 80,000 increase. The previous month's figure was revised down to a gain of 57,000. The labor force participation rate stood at 61.4%, down from 61.5% the prior month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised down the job gains for May and June by a combined 103,000.
US stock markets closed higher on Friday, with all three major indices posting their largest weekly gains since mid-April. The S&P 500 set a new closing record. The Nasdaq rose 1.3% for the week, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3.57% and 2.96%, respectively. The optical communications sector saw strong gains, while the memory chip sector was broadly lower. Major tech stocks were mostly higher, with SpaceX surging over 15% and Nvidia and Tesla adding over 2%. Airbnb recorded its best single-day gain since December 2020, jumping over 17%.
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