Morning News

Source: Wall Street News

# Market Overview

Boosted by chip stocks, the three major U.S. stock indices and the small-cap stock index collectively closed at record highs for the first time in nearly four years. The chip index rebounded by over 3%. Following the announcement of a cooperation agreement between the two companies, NVIDIA rose 3.5%, while Intel surged more than 20%—marking its largest gain since 1987. Tesla bucked the upward trend, falling over 2% and ending its seven-day winning streak. FedEx, which reported stronger-than-expected Q1 results, rose more than 7% in after-hours trading at one point. Chinese concept stocks pulled back, with the Chinese concept index dropping nearly 2% to end its three-day rally, and Alibaba falling over 2%.

U.S. Treasury prices declined for two consecutive days. The number of U.S. unemployment benefit claimants dropped more than expected, pushing U.S. Treasury yields to a nearly two-week high. The U.S. Dollar Index rebounded for two consecutive days, continuing to move away from its three-year low. The offshore RMB fell 200 pips during the session, breaking below the 7.11 level and moving away from its 11-month high. Bitcoin rose more than $2,000 at one point, approaching the $118,000 mark.

Trump favors lower oil prices, and crude oil fell over 1% intraday. Gold declined for two consecutive days, with gold futures dropping more than 1% to a one-week low.

During the Asian trading session, A-shares and Hong Kong stocks plummeted in the afternoon. The ChiNext Index fell 3% at one point, while AI hardware stocks remained active. The Hang Seng Index dropped 1%, with technology and internet stocks generally declining. Both government bonds and commodities fell simultaneously.

# Key News

Has China requested the termination of orders for NVIDIA's RTX Pro 6000D chips? China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded: It has always opposed discriminatory practices against specific countries in economic, trade and technological matters.

Huawei released its Ascend AI chip roadmap: The Ascend 950PR will be launched in Q1 next year, adopting self-developed HBM.

The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged and slowed the pace of quantitative tightening.

The number of initial jobless claims in the U.S. last week dropped significantly more than expected to 231,000, a decrease of 32,000 from the previous week—recording the largest drop in nearly four years.

Overseas investors' holdings of U.S. Treasuries hit a new high in July. Japan's holdings reached a new high in over a year; the UK increased its holdings by more than $4 billion for two consecutive months, continuing to set a new high; China's holdings fell to a new low in over 16 years; and Canada's holdings plummeted by $57.1 billion.

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Cook.

Trump stated that Putin has been disappointing, and oil prices need to be further lowered to force Russia to withdraw from the conflict—crude oil fell over 1% intraday.

NVIDIA invested $5 billion to take a stake in Intel, joining hands to develop PC and data center chips. Intel's stock price surged over 20%, its largest gain since 1987. Jensen Huang said the agreement with Intel focuses on custom chips and denied the Trump administration's involvement. Guo Mingji noted that TSMC's risks are manageable.

Microsoft's "world's most powerful AI data center" is about to be completed, and the company will invest another $4 billion to build its Version 2.0.

Moody's downgraded Oracle's rating to negative, stating that its $30 billion major orders are at risk.

New moves of Musk's "Giant Hardware Plan" were revealed: building a computing power cluster from scratch and completing the work that took OpenAI and Oracle 15 months in just 6 months.

The U.S. continued to ease digital asset regulations, with the SEC significantly lowering the application threshold for "digital currency ETFs." Bullish, a cryptocurrency exchange, reported profits in its first financial report after listing. The Coindesk Index aims to become the "MSCI of the crypto sector." The first Dogecoin ETF in the U.S. was approved for listing.

# Market Closing Data

U.S. and European Stock Markets: The S&P 500 rose 0.48% to close at 6,631.96. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.27% to end at 46,142.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.94% to close at 22,470.725. Europe's STOXX 600 Index closed up 0.80% at 555.01.

A-shares: The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.15% to close at 3,831.66; the Shenzhen Component Index dropped 1.06% to end at 13,075.66; the ChiNext Index declined 1.64% to close at 3,095.85.

Bond Market: By the end of the bond trading session, the yield on the U.S. 10-year benchmark Treasury note stood at approximately 4.10%, up about 1 basis point intraday; the yield on the U.S. 2-year Treasury note was around 3.56%, also up about 1 basis point intraday.

Commodities: WTI Crude Oil Futures for October closed down 0.75% at $63.57 per barrel. Brent Crude Oil Futures for November fell 0.75% to close at $67.44 per barrel. COMEX Gold Futures for December dropped 1.06% to close at $3,678.3 per ounce.

# Details of Key News

## Global Highlights

Has China requested the termination of orders involving NVIDIA's RTX Pro 6000D chips? China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responds.

According to Huanqiu.com, on the 18th, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian hosted a regular press conference. A Reuters reporter asked: According to a report by the *Financial Times*, China's internet regulatory authorities have instructed companies such as Alibaba and ByteDance to terminate orders for NVIDIA's RTX Pro 6000D chips. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated that he is disappointed about this. Can China confirm the situation reported and what is its comment?

In response, Lin Jian said that it is recommended to consult the competent authorities in China for specific issues. "We have always opposed discriminatory practices against specific countries in economic, trade and technological matters. China is willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation with all parties to safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains."

Huawei unveils Ascend AI chip roadmap: Ascend 950PR to be launched in Q1 next year with self-developed HBM. Subsequently, Ascend 950DT will be launched in Q4 2026, Ascend 960 chip in Q4 2027, and Ascend 970 chip in Q4 2028.

Bank of England keeps interest rates unchanged, slows pace of quantitative tightening. The Bank of England decided to keep interest rates unchanged but remains cautious about further interest rate cuts within the year, due to growing concerns about inflation rebound. The Bank of England stated in a statement that although inflation is expected to return to the 2% target, it has not yet emerged from difficulties. At the same time, the Bank of England announced that it will slow the pace of quantitative tightening to 70 billion pounds and restrict the sale of long-term bonds.

The number of initial jobless claims in the U.S. last week dropped significantly more than expected to 231,000, a decrease of 32,000 from the previous week, marking the largest drop in nearly four years. The decline mainly reflects the normalization of abnormal data in Texas, which changed from the state with the largest increase in applicants to the one with the largest decrease last week.

Overseas investors' holdings of U.S. Treasuries hit a new high in July. Japan's holdings reached another new high in over a year, China's holdings hit a new low in over 16 years, and Canada's holdings plummeted by 57.1 billion U.S. dollars. Among major countries and regions holding U.S. Treasuries, Japan, the top "creditor" of the U.S., has increased its holdings for seven consecutive months, reaching another new high in over a year; the UK, the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, has increased its holdings by more than 40 billion U.S. dollars for two consecutive months, with total holdings continuing to hit a record high; holdings by Chinese mainland fell by 25.7 billion U.S. dollars, representing the fourth month of reduction in five months.

The Trump administration asks the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Cook. In a Department of Justice document submitted to the Supreme Court, Attorney General Sauer wrote: "This application involves another improper judicial interference in the President's removal power. Here, it is an interference with the President's power to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board for cause."

Trump says Putin is disappointing, calls for further lowering of oil prices; crude oil falls over 1% intraday. Trump admitted that he once thought the Russia-Ukraine conflict was the "easiest" to resolve, but reality has proved otherwise. He said that if oil prices fall, Putin will withdraw from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He mentioned that the North Sea has large oil reserves, implying that oil prices may be lowered through increased production. Nevertheless, he still stated that it is not yet the time to "ask Putin for a ceasefire."

Intel surges by 30% at one point! NVIDIA invests 5 billion U.S. dollars to take a stake in Intel, joining hands to develop PC and data center chips. Intel will incorporate NVIDIA's graphics processing technology into its next-generation PC chips and provide processor support for data center products built on NVIDIA hardware. As of Wednesday's close, Intel's market value was approximately 116 billion U.S. dollars, and this transaction means NVIDIA's shareholding is less than 5%.

Jensen Huang says the agreement with Intel focuses on custom chips, denies Trump administration's involvement; Guo Mingji says TSMC's risks are manageable. Jensen Huang stated that the cooperation with Intel will open up new areas in the laptop market for NVIDIA and make NVIDIA a major customer of Intel's CPUs; the Arm roadmap will not be affected; he did not disclose whether Intel's fabs will be used to produce chips. Guo Mingji predicts that TSMC's leading position in advanced manufacturing processes may last until at least 2030, which will not be affected by the cooperation between NVIDIA and Intel, and TSMC's AI chip orders should also remain unaffected.

"World's most powerful AI data center" to be completed; Microsoft to invest another 4 billion U.S. dollars to build Version 2.0. Microsoft's 3.3 billion U.S. dollars data center "Fairwater" in Wisconsin, U.S., will be put into use in early next year. It will operate as a large AI supercomputer, equipped with hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA GB200 GPUs connected via optical fibers long enough to circle the Earth 4.5 times, with performance 10 times that of the world's current fastest supercomputer. Microsoft plans to invest an additional 4 billion U.S. dollars to build a second data center of the same scale in the same state.

Moody's downgrades Oracle's rating to negative, citing risks in its 300 billion U.S. dollars major orders. Moody's main concern is the counterparty risk arising from Oracle's over-reliance on a small number of customers. The agency predicts that Oracle's debt growth will outpace EBITDA growth, with leverage possibly rising to 4x, and free cash flow may be negative for a long period. Currently, Oracle's Moody's credit rating is Baa2, which is at the low end of investment grade.

New moves of Musk's "Giant Hardware Plan" revealed: building a computing power cluster from scratch, completing work that took OpenAI & Oracle 15 months in 6 months. "Giant Hardware" has become a key part of Musk's business portfolio, among which the Colossus II computing power cluster is related to the "Giant Hardware Plan". According to the plan, the first phase of Colossus II will deploy 110,000 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs, with a final target of more than 550,000 GPUs, and the peak power demand is expected to exceed 1.1 gigawatts. A longer-term roadmap even plans to expand the total number of GPUs to 1 million.

Musk: Reports of 10,000 Tesla Optimus robot transactions are "false".

"AI money-burning war" among major companies: Current scale is underestimated, future depreciation is underestimated, and price war may break out as early as 2027. Morgan Stanley predicts that the proportion of capital expenditure in revenue of five companies including Amazon and Google will reach 26% by 2027, approaching the peak level during the dot-com bubble. Off-balance-sheet tools such as financial leasing have led to the underestimation of investment scale. Bank of America warned that by 2027, the depreciation of Google, Amazon, and Meta alone may be underestimated by 16.4 billion U.S. dollars, and a price war may break out due to supply-demand imbalance by 2027, thereby eroding profitability.

U.S. continues to ease digital asset regulation; SEC significantly lowers application threshold for "digital currency ETFs". The new regulation reverses the case-by-case review method that has been in place since 2013. Asset management companies can apply according to unified standards, which greatly simplifies the digital currency ETF approval process, reducing the approval time from 240 days to a maximum of 75 days. The market expects that the first batch of beneficiary products will be ETFs tracking Solana and XRP. Analysts believe that this is a watershed moment for the U.S. digital asset regulatory approach, and the first batch of products is expected to be launched as early as October.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish posts profit in first earnings report after listing; CoinDesk Index aims to be "the MSCI of the crypto sector". Bullish achieved a net profit of 108.3 million U.S. dollars in its first earnings report after listing, turning losses into profits, with total trading volume increasing year-on-year to 179.6 billion U.S. dollars. However, excluding one-time items, the company still had an adjusted loss of 6 million U.S. dollars, with a slight decline in revenue. The company's ambition goes beyond the exchange business. The CEO revealed during the earnings call that its subsidiary CoinDesk will build the "MSCI of the crypto sector" and announced that it has obtained a New York virtual currency business license.

Cryptocurrency ETFs reach a watershed: U.S.' first Dogecoin ETF approved for listing. The approval of the Rex-Osprey Dogecoin ETF marks a watershed moment for the SEC's shift to supporting cryptocurrencies. On Wednesday this week, the SEC approved a new simplified listing standard for cryptocurrency ETFs. The SEC's major policy shift has driven the boom of cryptocurrency ETFs. Currently, there are 90 to 100 cryptocurrency ETF applications waiting for approval, and analysts expect all these products to be approved.

## Domestic Macro

Goldman Sachs' heavyweight report details China's (liquidity-driven) bull market. Goldman Sachs believes that the current rally in China's stock market is mainly driven by liquidity, with "reflation" expectations and AI independence as key catalysts, and institutional investors as the main buyers. The fundamentals for the A-share market to form a "slow bull" seem more solid than ever before. If the proportion of institutional shareholdings is subsequently increased to the average level of emerging markets or developed markets, it may bring potential capital inflows of 14 trillion yuan or 30 trillion yuan to the A-share market.

## Domestic Companies

Zhengzhou Municipal Market Supervision Bureau interviews Ctrip.com on regulating business operations.

## Overseas Macro

Retail investors take over U.S. stocks; trading volume of "0DTE (zero days to expiration) options" accounts for over 60% of total U.S. stock trading volume, and "fractional share" trading accounts for 66%. According to Goldman Sachs data, the trading volume of 0DTE "expiration-day options" in the third quarter accounted for more than 60% of total U.S. stock trading volume for the first time, hitting a record high and becoming the preferred tool for retail investors to pursue short-term returns. At the same time, the proportion of "fractional share" trading (single transactions of less than 100 shares) has surged from 31% in 2019 to 66%, reflecting a significant increase in retail investor participation. Data from Citadel shows that retail investors have maintained net purchases in 19 out of the past 22 weeks, and money market fund cash reserves have reached a record 7.3 trillion U.S. dollars, which may drive the allocation of risky assets in the future.

Capital inflows into commodities surge; inflation "traders" sound alarm: Global inflation may rebound within 6-9 months. Strategist Simon White said that historical data shows that metal prices lead global CPI by about 6-9 months. Currently, capital inflows into commodities are accelerating and metal prices are rising, a trend similar to that on the eve of inflation in 2020-2021. This stands in sharp contrast to the overconfidence in the stock and bond markets, indicating that the market's general view on inflation may be overly optimistic.

Under tariff panic, Switzerland's gold exports to the U.S. plummet. Swiss customs data shows that Switzerland's gold exports to the U.S. in August plummeted from more than 30 tons in the previous month to only 0.3 tons, a drop of more than 99%. Under tariff panic, Switzerland's total exports to the U.S. in August also decreased by 22% month-on-month.

## Overseas Companies

Meta Connect Conference: AI smart glasses lineup upgraded; gesture-controlled glasses with built-in screen priced at 799 U.S. dollars. Meta launched its first Ray-Ban smart glasses with a built-in display, priced at 799 U.S. dollars, equipped with a monocular digital display and a wristwatch for gesture control. The new generation of Ray-Ban smart glasses has doubled battery life and is priced at 379 U.S. dollars. At the same time, Meta released Oakley Vanguard smart glasses for athletes. The AI demonstration session suffered a failure at one point, and Zuckerberg humorously said, "I always mess things up."

This year's Meta Connect Conference is "disappointing". Zuckerberg launches the strongest AI glasses ever. However, compared with the cool new products and functions, what stood out more at this conference was the continuous failures of the new AI functions: the AI gave irrelevant answers, the Neural Band sensor failed. Various malfunctions forced Zuckerberg to squeeze out an awkward but polite smile and attribute the problem to the on-site Wi-Fi network.

Turmoil at xAI's top management: conflicts with Musk's advisors, multiple executives resign one after another. Media reports say that multiple xAI executives have resigned recently due to conflicts with two of Musk's close advisors over management methods and financial issues. According to insiders, executives expressed concerns about the company's lack of a clear management hierarchy and overly optimistic financial forecasts, and questioned the role of Musk's family office in fund management. Those who resigned include former X CEO Linda Yaccarino and former CFO Mike Liberatore.

AI chip unicorn Groq doubles its valuation in one year, claims to "surpass NVIDIA in three years"; latest financing of 5.3 billion yuan exceeds expectations. Groq recently successfully completed a financing round of 750 million U.S. dollars (about 5.3 billion yuan), with a valuation of up to 6.9 billion U.S. dollars (about 49 billion yuan). The company is committed to building LPU (Language Processing Unit) chips that can provide high-speed and low-cost AI inference to challenge NVIDIA's monopoly in the AI chip field. Groq's CEO stated that the new financing will be used to expand data center capacity, and plans to announce the location of the first data center in the Asia-Pacific region within this year.

"Altcoin launch platform" Pump.fun gains popularity again; live streaming for token promotion, daily revenue surpasses "crypto derivatives exchange" Hyperliquid. Driven by the September altcoin boom, the daily trading volume of Pump.fun, a token issuance platform based on Solana, once exceeded 1 billion U.S. dollars, and its revenue surpassed that of the well-known derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. By introducing live streaming functions, Pump.fun has attracted a large number of creators and funds, and paid 4 million U.S. dollars in rewards to creators. However, the platform also faces high risks and regulatory controversies.

Novo Nordisk's Ozempic outperforms Eli Lilly's Trulicity; stock price records largest gain in a month. A study based on Medicare data of nearly 60,000 patients shows that Novo Nordisk's Ozempic reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death by 23% compared to Eli Lilly's Trulicity. Novo Nordisk's stock price soared by over 7%. Prior to this, Eli Lilly had posed significant competitive pressure on Novo Nordisk with Mounjaro and Zepbound.

# Industries/Concepts

1. **Computing Power** | According to CNR News, on September 18, the Huawei Connect 2025 Conference kicked off in Shanghai. Xu Zhijun, Vice Chairman and Rotating Chairman of Huawei, delivered a keynote speech titled "Pioneering Super Node Interconnection Technology to Lead the New Paradigm of AI Infrastructure" and officially released the world's most powerful computing power super nodes and clusters. Huawei took the lead in introducing super node technology into the field of general computing and launched TaiShan 950 SuperPoD, the world's first general computing super node. Combined with the GaussDB distributed database, it can completely replace mainframes, minicomputers, and Exadata database appliances in various application scenarios.

  - **Comment**: Analysts believe that super node technology (SuperPod) is the core innovation direction of AI computing power infrastructure. By reconstructing the system-level architecture, it breaks through the performance and efficiency bottlenecks of traditional clusters. Through system-level Scale Up architecture, high-speed interconnection innovation, and software-hardware collaborative optimization, super node technology has become a new engine for AI computing power breakthroughs. Its core value lies in supporting the training and inference of trillion-parameter models with higher energy efficiency and lower latency, promoting AI from the "kilocard" era to the "10,000-card" era. In the future, with the maturity of technologies such as optical interconnection and liquid cooling, super nodes will further reduce computing power costs and accelerate the implementation of industrial intelligence.

2. **Hydrogen Energy** | According to Chinanews.com, recently, a research team from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released its latest achievement: after seven years of research, it has successfully developed the world's first hydride ion prototype battery. The achievement of the DICP research team is a new type of "core-shell structure" composite hydride electrolyte. On this basis, researchers assembled the world's first all-solid-state and rechargeable hydride ion prototype battery, verifying the feasibility of transforming from material research to application exploration.

  - **Comment**: Analysts believe that the significance of this achievement is reflected in at least three aspects: First, it expands the material system of solid-state ion batteries, proving that hydride ions can also serve as "carriers" of energy; second, the rechargeable and stacked demonstrations under room temperature show that this system is not limited to the material property level, but has achieved device-level verification; third, it opens up new possibilities for the application of hydrogen energy in the energy storage field. The hydrogen energy market is on the eve of large-scale development. Technological breakthroughs (reduction in electrolyzer costs, improvement in storage and transportation efficiency) and policy dividends (hydrogen transmission pipelines, carbon trading mechanisms) are jointly driving the industry into a period of rapid growth. In the short term, attention should be paid to the economy of green hydrogen and the improvement of the standard system; in the medium and long term, an application ecosystem integrating "transportation-industry-energy" will be formed. The market scale is expected to reach 4 trillion yuan by 2030, becoming a core pillar of the global energy transition.

3. **Short Dramas** | According to Jiemian News, in August, the total downloads of overseas short drama apps on both platforms reached approximately 120.1 million, with estimated in-app purchase revenue of about 196.4 million US dollars, an increase of nearly 10 million US dollars compared with July, setting a new monthly revenue high this year. In the first half of this year, the total revenue of the overseas short drama market has exceeded 1.088 billion US dollars; the annual revenue is expected to rise to 2.473 billion US dollars, and the total downloads are expected to reach 1.209 billion. Some forecasts even point out that by 2027, the scale of the overseas short drama market will increase to 18.7 billion US dollars (equivalent to about 133 billion yuan), surpassing the domestic market.

  - **Comment**: Analysts believe that in recent years, short dramas, as an important part of the mobile entertainment field, have been developing rapidly worldwide. With their strong emotional appeal, fast pace, and lightweight viewing experience, short dramas have become a new driver of user growth after short videos. The explosive demand in overseas markets has brought new opportunities to Chinese digital content enterprises.

# Preview of Today's Key News

- Japan's CPI for August

- The Bank of Japan announces its interest rate decision, and Governor Kazuo Ueda holds a press conference

- Speech by Mary Daly, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

- Quarterly adjustment of the FTSE A50 Index

- Huawei Connect 2025 Conference

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# Risk Warning and Disclaimer

The market is risky, and investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take into account the specific investment objectives, financial status, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinion, view, or conclusion in this article is in line with their specific situation. Investors shall bear their own risks for investments made based on this article.