The three major U.S. stock indexes closed lower, with semiconductor and optical communication stocks experiencing a sharp sell-off, while Chinese concept stocks bucked the trend and rose. The market's negative sentiment was fueled by renewed uncertainty in U.S.-Iran negotiations, which drove oil prices higher and raised inflation and interest rate concerns. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 2.94%, with optical communication stocks leading the decline. Coherent dropped 14.24%, ALAB fell 5.07%, Lumentum slid 8.61%, and Corning lost 4.78%. Intel also declined 4.06% after announcing a proposed $15 billion common stock offering. In contrast, the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index rose 1.65%.
The People's Bank of China released its "15th Five-Year Plan" reform and development outline, outlining key tasks for the 2025-2030 period. The central bank stated it will deepen the two-way opening of financial markets, strengthen cross-border connectivity of financial infrastructure, and build a technology finance system aligned with tech-driven innovation. It also plans to establish a "technology board" for the bond market, accelerate digital finance, and enhance financial support for boosting and expanding consumption. The plan emphasizes strengthening financial market rules to maintain stable market operations.
Alibaba Cloud has unveiled a new all-modular design architecture that enables large-scale AIDC data center delivery to be completed in just 100 days. In contrast, traditional domestic delivery cycles range from 6 to 12 months, while U.S. counterparts take 12 to 18 months. This innovative approach not only shortens construction time but also reduces overall data center building costs by over 10%. This year, Alibaba Cloud plans to more than double its global production capacity for modular data centers.
NVIDIA is actively seeking to partner with six of Wall Street's largest financial institutions, including Blackstone and BlackRock, to raise up to $500 billion for artificial intelligence infrastructure projects. The collaborating firms will form a joint venture to create a special-purpose investment fund, with proceeds dedicated to AI chip procurement, electricity generation, and data center construction. If finalized, this initiative would rank among the largest fundraising actions in Wall Street history.
Investment Diary
The Global Solid-State Battery Annual Summit is upcoming.
Investment Nugget
"We consistently overestimate our understanding of the world and underestimate the role of chance in events." - Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
Institutional Outlook
Zhongtai Securities notes that after the global AI sector's rebound, there is a clear divergence between bulls and bears. The market remains in a complex bottoming process, but it may still reach new highs for the year. Huajin Securities believes that during a bull market, short-term corrections are followed by high-growth and policy-driven technology sectors potentially outperforming. Founder Securities observes that the market is showing signs of shrinking volume as it approaches the annual moving average, with bulls and bears engaging in repeated tug-of-war.
Positive and Negative Catalysts
The "15th Five-Year Plan" for the coal industry has been released, with institutions identifying investment directions. In the short term, Sinolink Securities suggests focusing on the next round of restocking around September, which could drive coal demand upward. Long-term, the firm is optimistic about EPS and valuation expansion driven by rising thermal coal price benchmarks, recommending attention to structural opportunities with potential for surprises.
Doubao, an AI assistant, is reportedly charging a 12% commission for hotel recommendations. Huaxin Securities views 2026 as the "golden year" for AI applications, with technology maturing. Many large models now possess strong tool-calling, multimodal understanding, and autonomous planning capabilities, driving demand from both B-end cost reduction and efficiency gains to C-end mass adoption.
Storage leader Longsys Electronics reported a staggering 715-fold surge in net profit for the first half of the year, exceeding 10.5 billion yuan. Everbright Securities attributes this to the ultra-high prosperity in the storage chip sector driven by the AI wave, particularly HBM chips, where supply remains severely lagging behind demand. This imbalance has led to continued price increases for storage chips.
Announcement Highlights
Positive announcements: Silicon Integrated reported a net profit of 278 million yuan in the first half of 2026, achieving a turnaround from losses. Guolian Minsheng plans to repurchase A-share shares worth between 100 million and 200 million yuan. Shanshan Co., Ltd. saw Conch Group invest 4.998 billion yuan, becoming its indirect controlling shareholder.
Negative announcements: Changling Hydraulic shareholders plan to collectively reduce their holdings by up to 3% of the company's shares. Sansure Biotech faces potential judicial enforcement of some shares held by a former shareholder with a 5%+ stake. Tech-bank Food's subsidiary, Jiande Nongfa, has been ruled for bankruptcy restructuring.
Overseas Markets
Due to growing skepticism about a near-term resolution to the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, the three major indexes closed lower. The optical communication sector opened higher but closed lower, with Coherent dropping over 14%. The storage sector had mixed results, with SanDisk rising over 2%, while SK Hynix fell over 1%. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index rose 1.65%, with most popular Chinese concept stocks trading higher.
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