Morning News

**Source**: Wall Street Insights

### Market Overview

The S&P 500 logged a **five-day winning streak** and closed at a record high ahead of tech giants' earnings releases, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged lower. Healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group dropped nearly 20%, leading the declines among Dow components.

Before earnings announcements, Microsoft rose over 2%; Tesla slipped 1%; Micron Technology jumped more than 5% after unveiling a $24 billion investment in NAND chip manufacturing; Corning soared over 15% on a major optical fiber deal with Meta.

The U.S. dollar tumbled to a **four-year low**, plunging over 1% and posting its biggest four-day loss since former President Trump announced tariff hikes in April last year. The Japanese yen rallied 4% cumulatively in three days. The euro and British pound hit their highest levels since 2021. The offshore Chinese yuan broke the 6.94 mark intraday for the first time in nearly three years. Bitcoin climbed over 2% intraday to reclaim the $89,000 level.

U.S. consumer confidence missed expectations, dragging U.S. Treasury yields to fresh daily lows.

Crude oil rebounded, rallying over 3% intraday late in the session amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. Gold extended its record-breaking run to **six consecutive days**, with spot gold surging over 3% intraday. Silver traded in a volatile range.

During the Asian trading session, A-shares staged a late-afternoon rally, with all three major indices closing higher. The computing power industry chain led the surge. The Hang Seng Index rose over 1%; Zijin Gold jumped more than 11%; Shanghai silver bucked the broader trend to gain 7%.

### Top News

- China's industrial profits of major industrial enterprises rose **5.3% year-on-year** in December, with the full-year growth at 0.6%—marking the first annual increase in four years.

- The U.S. is set to hold an air force combat readiness exercise in the Middle East. Crude oil futures climbed 3% intraday, and spot gold rose over 2%. Trump warned: If he were assassinated, Iran would be "wiped off the face of the Earth".

- The U.S. dollar fell to a four-year trough, but Trump brushed off concerns, claiming the dollar was "performing excellently" and would find a reasonable level. Japan's Finance Minister stated that the government would coordinate exchange rate actions with the U.S. if necessary, sending the yen higher in short-term trading.

- The U.S. government shutdown deadline looms. Trump held a phone call with Minnesota's governor and agreed to consider reducing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.

- The "Fed Wire" reported: The Federal Reserve is expected to **pause interest rate cuts** in January, with the timing of future cuts remaining uncertain; Fed Governor Christopher Waller's vote will be a key focus.

- Google Cloud officially announced a price hike, with rates doubling in North America.

- Anthropic is targeting a **$20 billion funding round**—double its initial target—valuing the AI firm at $350 billion.

- Corning surged over 19% to hit its highest intraday level since 2004! Reports said Meta plans to splurge $6 billion on optical fiber orders to expand its AI data centers.

- **DeepSeek-OCR 2** was officially launched: The AI model has mastered "human visual logic" to interpret images through causal reasoning.

- An all-in-one visual assistant is here! Kimi quietly rolled out K2.5, which can simultaneously deploy 100 intelligent agents, boosting efficiency by up to 4.5 times.

- Even the "biggest customer" has conceded! South Korean media reported that Samsung and SK Hynix will double the DRAM supply prices to Apple in Q1 compared to the previous quarter.

- Micron announced the construction of a new NAND chip factory, with a total investment of $24 billion.

- Driven by AI demand, PCB leader WUS Printed Circuit Co., Ltd. posted a 42% year-on-year revenue growth and a 48% year-on-year increase in net profit attributable to shareholders in 2025.

- Surging demand for AI chips propelled domestic GPU leader Moore Threads Technology Co., Ltd. to project a **115% year-on-year revenue surge** in 2025, with net losses narrowing 43.36% year-on-year to 5.386 billion yuan.

- Ganfeng Lithium reversed losses to turn profitable, forecasting a net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.1–1.65 billion yuan in 2025, with over 1 billion yuan contributed by fair value changes.

### Market Closing Quotes

#### European & U.S. Stock Markets

- S&P 500: +0.41%, closed at 6,978.60 points

- Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.83%, closed at 49,003.41 points

- Nasdaq Composite: +0.91%, closed at 23,817.098 points

- Europe STOXX 600 Index: +0.58%, closed at 613.11 points

#### A-Shares

- Shanghai Composite Index: closed at 4,139.90 points, +0.18%

- Shenzhen Component Index: closed at 14,329.91 points, +0.09%

- ChiNext Index: closed at 3,342.60 points, +0.71%

#### Bond Market

- The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note rose 1.79 basis points to 4.2293%.

- The yield on the U.S. 2-year Treasury note fell 2.02 basis points to 3.5690%.

#### Commodities

- WTI Crude Oil Futures (March contract): +2.90%, closed at $62.39 per barrel

- Brent Crude Oil Futures (March contract): +3.02%, closed at $67.57 per barrel

- COMEX Gold Futures: +1.82%, closed at $5,175.10 per ounce

- COMEX Silver Futures: +2.28%, closed at $112.850 per ounce

### Details of Top News

#### Global Headlines

China's profits of major industrial enterprises rose **5.3% year-on-year** in December, with the full-year growth reaching 0.6%—marking the first annual increase in four years. In 2025, the profit growth of major industrial enterprises achieved a four-year milestone, reflecting the significant supporting role of new industrial growth drivers and the ongoing shift toward high-quality industrial economic development. However, it is important to note that the impact of external environment changes is gradually deepening, industrial transformation and upgrading are experiencing growing pains, and some enterprises still face certain difficulties in production and operation. Moving forward, efforts should be made to further integrate technological innovation with industrial innovation, continuously optimize the industrial structure, accelerate the cultivation of new productive forces, and promote the sustained improvement of industrial enterprises' efficiency.

A report by the Macro Team of Shenwan Hongyuan stated that the year-on-year growth rate of industrial enterprises' profits rebounded significantly to 18.5% in December, mainly driven by other profit and loss items (such as investment income), a pattern similar to that in August. The revenue growth rate declined somewhat, and although cost pressures have eased partially, they still constrain the recovery of profitability. Profits in industries such as non-ferrous metal processing and coal mining and washing saw substantial growth, providing a notable boost to the overall figure. The growth rate of accounts receivable continued to decline, indicating progress in the implementation of debt clearance policies. Going forward, attention should be paid to the effect of "anti-involution" policies in alleviating cost pressures.

The U.S. will hold an air force combat readiness exercise in the Middle East, sending crude oil prices up 3% intraday and spot gold surging over 2%. According to Xinhua News Agency, the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, issued a statement on the 27th saying that its Ninth Air Force will conduct a multi-day air combat readiness exercise to demonstrate its capabilities in rapid deployment, dispersed operations, and sustained combat within the Central Command's area of responsibility. According to CCTV News, the U.S. was reported to have informed Israel of the progress in its operational preparations against Iran. Iran's President held a phone call with the Saudi Crown Prince, and the foreign ministers of Iran and Qatar also conducted a conversation. Iranian officials stated that they have implemented real-time monitoring of the Strait of Hormuz.

**Trump: If assassinated, Iran will be "wiped off the face of the Earth"!** Trump publicly warned that if Iran orchestrates an assassination attempt against him, the U.S. will "wipe Iran off the face of the Earth" and has deployed additional aircraft carrier strike groups to the Middle East, escalating regional tensions. In response, Iran stated that it has the ability to launch a strong counterattack against any aggression, while disclosing that the two countries are engaging through "informal" channels, but emphasized that there is no established negotiation mechanism at present and the situation remains in a dynamic state of evolution.

The U.S. dollar fell to a four-year low, but Trump is unconcerned: "The dollar is performing excellently and will find a reasonable level." Trump hinted that he could manipulate the U.S. dollar exchange rate, claiming that "it can be made to fluctuate up and down like a yo-yo," but argued that doing so would not be a good thing, and also criticized Japan for devaluing its currency consistently. Amid market speculation that the U.S. and Japan may jointly intervene in the foreign exchange market, the Japanese yen has rallied 4% cumulatively over the past three trading days. In the long run, structural factors such as the Federal Reserve's independence, the expanding budget deficit, concerns over fiscal profligacy, and political polarization are exerting downward pressure on the U.S. dollar.

Japan's Finance Minister: Will coordinate exchange rate actions with the U.S. if necessary, sending the yen higher in short-term trading. Japan's Finance Minister Kotaro Kato stated that the government will coordinate appropriate exchange rate actions with the U.S. if needed, driving the yen's short-term appreciation against the U.S. dollar. Market expectations for potential joint intervention by the U.S. and Japan have heated up, with the New York Fed's previous inquiry about USD/JPY quotes from multiple institutions being regarded as a precursor to potential intervention. Although short-term depreciation pressure has eased, institutions generally believe that USD/JPY may seek a new equilibrium in the 147–149 range in the medium term.

**Intervention signals emerging? New York Fed's "rate check" ignites the yen, with 147–149 becoming the new focus range.** The U.S. conducted a "rate check" through the New York Fed, issuing a strong verbal intervention warning in coordination with Japan, which directly caused the USD/JPY exchange rate to plummet over 4% in a single day and triggered sharp fluctuations in the options market. This move is seen as a significant shift in the U.S. stance on the foreign exchange market, with its deterrent effect far exceeding Japan's unilateral actions. The market is urgently pricing in the possibility of joint intervention by the U.S. and Japan, and the 147–149 range is regarded as the key support level for the yen's medium-term trend.

The U.S. government shutdown deadline is approaching. Trump held a phone call with the Minnesota governor and agreed to consider reducing the number of ICE personnel. With the U.S. government shutdown crisis entering the countdown, Trump has rarely softened his stance on immigration enforcement, promising to reduce the number of federal agents in Minnesota. The direct trigger for this shift in the Trump administration was a series of shooting incidents in Minnesota, a variable that has shattered expectations for the passage of the budget bill. If the two parties fail to reach a consensus on funding for the Department of Homeland Security by Saturday, key departments such as the Pentagon will face a shutdown.

**"The Fed Wire"**: The Fed is expected to pause rate cuts in January, with the timing of future cuts uncertain; Waller's vote will be a key focus. Nick Timiraos wrote that Fed officials are divided on when inflation data will be sufficient to support further interest rate cuts. After three consecutive rate cuts since September last year, Fed officials are expected to pause rate cuts at this week's meeting. Due to mixed inflation and labor market data, officials hold distinct views on whether and when to continue cutting rates in the future. A further rate cut before mid-year will likely require a significant deterioration in the labor market. It is expected that Fed Governor Michelle Bowman will once again vote against the decision at the January meeting, and Fed Governor Christopher Waller's voting stance will attract particular attention.

**Google Cloud officially announced a price hike, with rates doubling in North America.** Google Cloud and Amazon AWS have successively raised prices for core services recently, marking a key turning point in the nearly two-decade-long downward pricing trend in the global cloud computing industry. This price adjustment is mainly driven by the surging demand for AI computing power and rising upstream hardware and energy costs, reflecting the industry's transmission of structural cost pressures to downstream customers. Market analysts believe that this signals that AI infrastructure has become the core of strategic pricing, and the industry may enter a new pricing cycle.

**"We really messed up"! Altman made a rare live broadcast to "reflect"**: GPT-5 took a wrong turn; coding will no longer be important. Sam Altman admitted that OpenAI "over-specialized" in GPT-5 development by focusing excessively on programming and reasoning capabilities, and will return to the general-purpose model route in the future. He predicted a complete transformation of software development paradigms: writing code will no longer be crucial, and "enabling systems to achieve goals" will be the core, with demand for engineers set to rise rather than fall. In addition, he warned of AI biosecurity risks in 2026, emphasizing the need to build a "resilient" defense system, and noted that human attention and creativity will become the ultimate scarce resources in an era of abundance.

**Anthropic to raise $20 billion—double the initial target—valued at $350 billion.** OpenAI's rival Anthropic is planning to raise approximately $20 billion from venture capital firms and other investors, double its initial target, reflecting the rapidly growing enthusiasm among investors. This nearly finalized funding round will value Anthropic at $350 billion. Anthropic's appeal lies in its focus on providing AI solutions for enterprises, the stability of its management team, and the widespread popularity of its programming tool Claude Code.

**Corning surged over 19% to hit its highest intraday level since 2004! Report: Meta plans to splurge $6 billion on fiber optic orders to boost AI data centers.** Meta has signed a long-term fiber optic supply agreement with Corning worth up to $6 billion to secure key transmission channels for the construction of its global AI data centers. These fiber optics serve as the cornerstone of AI computing, responsible for transmitting massive volumes of data between thousands of GPUs at near-light speed. Meta's two largest under-construction data centers—the 1-gigawatt "Prometheus" in Ohio and the 5-gigawatt "Hyperion" in Louisiana—will both fully adopt Corning's fiber optic products.

**DeepSeek-OCR 2 officially launched: AI masters "human visual logic" to interpret images through causal flow.** DeepSeek released its new OCR 2 system, leveraging its core DeepEncoder V2 technology to enable AI to interpret images based on "logical causality" like humans, rather than through mechanical scanning. In benchmark tests, the new model achieved a performance rate of 91.09%, representing a 3.73% improvement over its predecessor, while the upper limit of visual token usage was reduced to 1,120 (down from 1,156 in the previous version). This technological breakthrough is expected to disrupt traditional document processing models and open up a new path for native multimodal reasoning.

**An all-in-one visual assistant is here! Kimi quietly launched K2.5, capable of simultaneously deploying 100 agents with efficiency boosted by up to 4.5 times.** Moonshot AI quietly rolled out Kimi K2.5, whose core breakthrough lies in its ability to parallelly schedule up to 100 intelligent agents to collaborate, significantly enhancing the efficiency of complex task processing. The model features advanced visual understanding capabilities, allowing users to directly upload complex materials such as circuit diagrams, handwritten formulas, or financial statements. The model can not only recognize content but also perform logical analysis and deduction.

**Even the "biggest customer" has conceded! South Korean media reported that Samsung and SK Hynix will double DRAM supply prices to Apple in Q1 compared to the previous quarter.** The prices of low-power DRAM supplied by Samsung and SK Hynix to Apple in Q1 will double from the previous quarter, with increases of over 80% and approximately 100% respectively. This marks a concession by Apple, the largest customer, breaking its long-standing practice of low-price procurement. Due to supply constraints, the two parties only completed negotiations for the first half of the year, and with the launch of new iPhone models in the second half of the year, prices are expected to rise further.

**Micron announced the construction of a new NAND factory with a total investment of $24 billion.** To address the supply shortage of memory chips driven by artificial intelligence, Micron announced that it will invest an additional $24 billion in Singapore over the next decade to build a new NAND flash memory wafer fab. Singapore is already one of Micron's important NAND production bases, and in early 2025, Micron announced a $7 billion investment in Singapore over the next few years.

**Clawdbot ignites the entire AI agent ecosystem.** Clawdbot has recently gained explosive popularity in the overseas tech circle, with some opinions regarding it as the "ChatGPT moment" of 2026. This AI assistant, which operates automatically 24/7, can process information, browse web pages, and proactively interact with users through communication tools, being regarded as the embryonic form of the future intelligent agent (Agent) network. Its success has prompted a re-examination of the Agent ecosystem in the market, triggering discussions on core links such as interaction portals (e.g., Meta, Tencent), content and API infrastructure (e.g., Cloudflare), and the value of user attention.

**Driven by AI demand, PCB leader WUS Printed Circuit Co., Ltd. posted 42% YoY revenue growth and 48% YoY growth in net profit attributable to shareholders in 2025.** Fueled by demand for AI and high-speed computing, WUS Printed Circuit achieved revenue of approximately 18.9 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of around 3.822 billion yuan in 2025, representing year-on-year growth of about 42% and 47.74% respectively. Its weighted average return on net assets reached 28.57%, indicating continuous improvement in profitability; non-recurring profit and loss-adjusted net profit was basically equivalent to net profit attributable to shareholders, reflecting high profit quality. The company's total asset scale increased to approximately 28.3 billion yuan, up 33.40% YoY, with the pace of asset expansion outpacing profit growth.

**Surging demand for AI chips propels domestic GPU leader Moore Threads Technology Co., Ltd. to project over 115% YoY revenue surge in 2025, with net losses narrowing 43.36% YoY to 5.386 billion yuan.** Moore Threads' 2025 performance forecast shows that its revenue will more than double year-on-year (expected to be 1.6–1.7 billion yuan), but net profit will still be in the red at 650–798 million yuan. This reflects that while Chinese AI chip startups are accelerating product commercialization, they still face ongoing profitability challenges amid high R&D investment and fierce competition, and the industry still needs time to cross the break-even point.

**Ganfeng Lithium reversed losses to turn profitable, forecasting 1.1–1.65 billion yuan in net profit attributable to shareholders in 2025, with over 1 billion yuan contributed by fair value changes.** Ganfeng Lithium expects to achieve net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.1–1.65 billion yuan in 2025, successfully turning from loss to profit. The growth is mainly driven by 1.03 billion yuan in fair value gains from the rise in Pilbara's stock price and asset transfer gains. However, after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, the company still posted a loss of 300–600 million yuan, indicating that its core business remains under pressure.

#### Selected Research Reports

**Focus of Q4 earnings reports of four U.S. tech giants: Apple's execution capability, Microsoft's computing power, Meta's investment scale, Tesla's imagination.** The trading logic behind this round of earnings reports is extremely clear: rather than focusing on earnings per share in the past three months, it is better to keep an eye on capital expenditure guidance and the fulfillment rate of growth stories. Meta faces significant risks of capital expenditure out of control; if its guidance exceeds expectations, its valuation will come under heavy pressure. Microsoft, on the other hand, is in the sweet spot of the "computing power arms race". Apple will once again demonstrate its iron-fisted control over the supply chain. Tesla's fundamentals have decoupled from car manufacturing, evolving into a game centered on the SpaceX IPO and the timeline for Robotaxi commercialization.

**Red envelope wars kick off! Will China's AI assistants usher in their "iPhone moment" after the 2026 Spring Festival?** Citi stated that the red envelope war is not a simple Spring Festival promotion, but rather an important verification window for China's AI assistants to reach the inflection point of becoming nationwide applications. The essence of Spring Festival red envelopes is not the subsidy amount, but "forcing users to form AI usage habits". As long as users develop dependence through high-frequency use over 7–10 days, post-holiday retention rates are likely to be significantly higher than those of historical internet products.

**Will AI accounting be the next "killer application"?** Back-office financial accounting processes are emerging as a potential area for AI monetization. AI can significantly reduce the time accounting personnel spend on manual tasks, allowing them to shift to higher-value work and significantly improve customer return on investment. Software vendors such as Intuit (focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises) and Workday (targeting large enterprises) are accelerating value capture through product upgrades, with Intuit expected to realize revenue growth more quickly.

**European asset management giant Amundi: Gold is the most realistic alternative amid de-dollarization; no interest in euros or yen.** Amundi, Europe's largest asset management firm, pointed out that affected by the U.S. massive deficit and geopolitical frictions, institutional investors are accelerating their shift away from the U.S. dollar and flocking to gold. Currently, investors "may not want to buy euros, while the yen is under pressure". In this context, gold, as the most realistic alternative in the current market environment, still has room for further price increases.

**Citi's latest commodity outlook: In a bull market scenario, gold to hit $6,000, copper $15,000, and aluminum set to challenge the $4,000 mark.** Citi believes that gold has shifted from "cost-based pricing" to being determined by wealth reallocation and supply rigidity, with the potential to surge to $6,000 in a bull market scenario. Copper and aluminum have become core carriers of AI and energy transition: supported by data center demand, inventory constraints, and supply bottlenecks, copper is expected to hit $15,000 per ton in a bull market. Aluminum is regarded as the most certain long-term bet in the medium term due to China's production capacity ceiling, power constraints, and structural demand growth, with an optimistic target of $4,000 per ton.

**Commodity legend Rick Rule: Spotting an epic investment opportunity in oil and gas stocks; preferring silver mining stocks over physical silver.** Rick Rule, a legend in natural resources investment, stated in a recent interview that the current oil and gas sector presents an "epic" investment opportunity rarely seen in his decades-long career. He predicted that oil prices will rise to $85–90 per barrel in the next 3–4 years, with the core logic being that long-term insufficient global capital investment will trigger a structural supply crisis. He suggested focusing on high-quality companies that continue to make capital expenditures, and at the same time converting physical silver holdings in investment portfolios into silver mining stocks to obtain higher leverage. He emphasized that this opportunity requires investors to exercise patience, but high dividends and low valuations have already built a considerable margin of safety.

**UBS: The double blow of rising metal and memory chip prices will completely erode the profits of electric vehicle manufacturers.** UBS stated that the rebound in prices of metals such as copper, aluminum, and lithium, coupled with a 180% surge in DRAM chip prices, has increased the per-vehicle cost by 4,000–7,000 yuan. Among them, the metal cost alone for pure electric vehicles has risen by 5,600 yuan. With the resumption of purchase tax collection and the withdrawal of stimulus policies in 2026, weak demand makes it difficult for automakers to pass on costs. Amid the current environment of meager profits, this round of price increases is sufficient to completely erode the profit margins of automakers.

**The power super cycle is erupting—are the real opportunities not on the power generation side?** Bernstein believes that most investors are fixated on the brute-force expansion logic of "building more power plants", while ignoring the optimal solution to address power shortages: improving power efficiency through technological innovation without increasing power generation capacity. The report emphasized that two high-voltage technologies—800V data center architecture and 765kV transmission lines—can each boost power efficiency by up to 5%. As the power cycle enters the second phase of "efficiency improvement" from the first phase of "capacity expansion", previously undervalued power distribution and power management enterprises are expected to recover lost ground and reshape the market pattern.

#### Domestic Macro Economy

**Newly revised Implementation Regulations of the Drug Administration Law issued: Allowing segmented production of innovative drugs to accelerate the launch of high-quality drugs.** The State Council announced the newly revised Implementation Regulations of the Drug Administration Law, which will come into effect on May 15, 2026. This marks the first comprehensive revision of the regulations since their implementation more than 20 years ago. The key revisions include: improving the drug registration system, establishing market exclusivity periods for pediatric drugs and orphan drugs for the first time (up to 2 years and 7 years respectively), and clarifying four accelerated approval pathways for new drugs; strengthening the responsibilities of online drug trading platforms and regulating online drug sales; allowing segmented contract manufacturing of innovative drugs to optimize the industrial supply chain; and shifting the focus of supervision from enterprises to marketing authorization holders, enhancing the full-life-cycle supervision of drugs.

### Domestic Companies

Vanke’s proposal to extend two medium-term notes totaling 5.7 billion yuan was approved, and its major shareholder Shenzhen Metro provided an additional 2.36 billion yuan in loans. According to The Paper, both proposals (Proposal 3) to extend the maturity of two bonds issued by Vanke, with a combined value of 5.7 billion yuan, were approved by 100% of the bondholders. Meanwhile, Vanke received a loan support of up to 2.36 billion yuan from its controlling shareholder Shenzhen Metro Group. This move has bought Vanke a buffer period to meet its debt maturing in the first quarter, and the company has also pledged to provide accounts receivable pledges of its project companies as credit enhancement measures.

Shenwan Hongyuan expects its net profit attributable to shareholders in 2025 to increase by 75%-94%, with a strong recovery in its core business.

China Merchants Securities released its 2025 performance express report, showing that its net profit rose by more than 18% last year, with brokerage business likely contributing prominently.

Da Jia Property & Casualty Insurance’s premium income exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2025, and its net profit surged by 439%.

Ping An continued to snap up shares of peer companies; can its increased holdings of China Life’s H-shares approach 10%?

HSBC completed the privatization of Hang Seng Bank, which officially delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On January 27, Hang Seng Bank announced the withdrawal of its listing status on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. After completing the relevant legal procedures and privatization plan, this 93-year-old local bank in Hong Kong will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings.

Wall Street commented on Zijin Mining’s acquisition of a new gold mine: a key step toward the target of annual gold output of 100 tons. Citi stated that the acquisition consideration is equivalent to $365 per ounce of gold reserves and only $231 per ounce of gold resources, making the acquisition price highly attractive given the current gold price. Morgan Stanley believes that with the expansion of acquired assets and the commissioning of new projects, Allied Gold’s annual output will reach 25 tons by 2029, which will directly help Zijin achieve its target of "100 tons of annual gold output" by 2030.

### Overseas Macro

India and the EU finalized a "historic" free trade agreement: India will eliminate tariffs on more than 90% of EU goods and provide an import quota of 250,000 vehicles. According to media reports, the free trade agreement signed between India and the EU has achieved in-depth market opening: India will abolish tariffs on over 90% of EU goods and specifically propose zero tariffs on steel products. It will also offer an annual import quota of 250,000 vehicles, with tariff reductions and exemptions for fuel-powered vehicles and electric vehicles to be implemented in phases. In addition, the tariff on wine will be adjusted to 20% to 30%, the tariff on spirits will be reduced to 40%, and the tariff on beer will be cut to 50%. Tariffs on auto parts will also be lowered to zero.

Trump threatened tariffs, leading to a drop in South Korean stocks at Tuesday’s opening; Hyundai Motor plunged nearly 5% at one point. On the 26th local time, Trump announced that he would raise the tariff rate on South Korean automobiles, pharmaceuticals and timber from 15% to 25%. The move caused a sharp drop in South Korean auto stocks at the opening on Tuesday; Hyundai Motor’s share price plummeted by 4.77% intraday before narrowing the decline. The company is the largest importer of South Korean new cars in the United States.

Gold is soaring; why isn’t Bitcoin, the "digital gold", acting as a safe-haven asset? Rodrigues believes that Bitcoin’s characteristics of 24/7 trading, deep liquidity, and instant settlement make it the most liquid asset. In periods of economic uncertainty, Bitcoin is more like an "ATM machine", where investors quickly sell Bitcoin to raise cash. Bitcoin is more suitable for hedging long-term concerns, such as large-scale devaluation of fiat currencies or sovereign debt crises, while the current market turmoil is regarded as "phased".

### Overseas Companies

Karpathy: 20 years of programming career disrupted in weeks, with 80% of code written by AI; Claude and Codex have crossed a certain consistency threshold. Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI, stated that models such as Claude crossed the "consistency threshold" at the end of 2025, triggering a phase transition in software engineering. AI excels at performing repetitive tasks, improving efficiency and expanding capabilities, but still requires IDE supervision to correct its conceptual errors. He noted that manual coding capabilities are starting to decline, predicting that the productivity gap between top engineers and ordinary engineers will widen, and 2026 will be a crucial year for the industry to adapt to new capabilities.

OpenAI’s asking price for ChatGPT ads is staggering, with no conversion rate data provided. OpenAI set a pricing target of approximately $60 per thousand impressions for its first batch of ads, compared to Meta’s platform which usually costs less than $20. Industry insiders believe that such high advertising pricing, without verification of effectiveness, may make some potential advertisers cautious. This strategy will test the market’s recognition of the value of ChatGPT ads and advertisers’ willingness to invest in emerging AI platforms.

NVIDIA made a heavy layout in "server CPUs"; Jensen Huang: to launch Vera CPU. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced the launch of the server CPU codenamed "Vera", which will be sold as a standalone product for the first time, aiming to solve the CPU bottleneck in the AI supply chain. Based on the Arm architecture, the chip is equipped with 88 cores and 1.5TB of memory, with significantly improved performance compared to the previous generation. NVIDIA added a $2 billion investment in CoreWeave, which will deploy the Vera CPU for the first time.

LVMH’s Q4 core soft luxury business unexpectedly declined by 3%; under tariff threats, annual profit of the wine and spirits division plummeted by 25%, leading to a "flash crash" in its stock price. LVMH’s organic revenue grew by 1% in the fourth quarter, outperforming expectations. Organic revenue in Asian markets excluding Japan, such as China, increased by 1% instead of declining. However, the organic revenue of the fashion and leather goods division, which contributes nearly half of LVMH’s total revenue, accelerated its decline in the fourth quarter. The organic revenue of the wine and spirits division fell by 9%, far below expectations, while the organic revenue of the perfume and cosmetics division turned negative by 1% during the peak season at the end of the year. The full-year total revenue fell by 4.6%, in line with expectations, with exchange rates contributing a negative impact of about 3%; organic revenue in Japan dropped by 13%, reflecting the fading of the tourist-driven effect in 2024. After the release of the financial report, LVMH’s US-listed shares once fell by 2% after rising more than 2% in early trading.

Boeing’s Q4 revenue surged 57% year-on-year; annual delivery volume reached the highest level since 2018. Asset sales boosted adjusted EPS to a more than ten-year high. Boeing achieved a 57% year-on-year revenue growth to $23.95 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, and recorded positive free cash flow for the second consecutive quarter ($375 million), indicating a recovery in production and deliveries. Boosted by one-time gains from the sale of its digital aviation business, adjusted earnings per share hit a quarterly high in more than a decade. However, excluding this factor, the actual loss per share exceeded analysts’ expectations, and the commercial aircraft division continued to face pressure. Despite the backlog of orders hitting a record high of $682 billion and steady capacity expansion, uncertainties such as certification delays, project cost overruns, and labor negotiations still test Boeing’s full recovery.

### Industries/Concepts

1. **Domestic Chips** | On January 27, Sino Microelectronics issued a price increase notice stating that affected by the current industry-wide chip supply shortage and rising costs, the delivery cycle of packaged finished products has become longer, costs have increased significantly compared with previous periods, and costs such as frame and packaging and testing fees have also continued to rise. In view of the current severe supply-demand situation and huge cost pressure, it has decided to adjust the prices of products such as MCU and Norflash with immediate effect, with a price increase range of 15%-50%. If costs change significantly again in the future, prices will be adjusted accordingly. On the same day, National Scientific Instruments also announced substantial price increases for a variety of storage products (some with increases of 60% to 80%), indicating that the current semiconductor industry chain is facing systemic cost pressure.

**Commentary**: Securities Times pointed out that the chip industry as a whole is currently in a state of tight supply, coupled with the general increase in costs of upstream raw materials and manufacturing links, leading to longer delivery cycles of packaged finished products and greater operational pressure on enterprises. In terms of cost composition, in addition to materials, procurement costs in the packaging and testing links and frame categories have also risen sharply, which is particularly significant in standard products such as MCU and Norflash. Benefiting from the sprint shipments of major DRAM and NAND Flash manufacturers, orders have poured into Taiwanese storage packaging and testing factories such as Powertech Technology, ASE Group, and ChipMOS Technologies, with capacity utilization rates approaching full load. Recently, they have successively raised packaging and testing prices, with an increase of up to 30%. Analysts believe that accelerated chips and memory chips driven by AI have squeezed a large amount of production capacity for traditional demand, leading to shortages in many links, which may further spread to the upstream of the industry chain. With the emergence of supply-demand imbalance, a price increase trend is expected.

2. **Natural Gas** | According to Shanghai Securities News, large-scale winter storms triggered a sharp rise in U.S. natural gas prices, hitting a three-year high. The price of Henry Hub natural gas futures for February delivery soared to $7.43 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) on the 26th, up 140% since January 16. According to relevant news on the 26th, spot natural gas prices in several northeastern U.S. states rose to $50 to $100 per MMBtu last weekend, and spot natural gas trading prices on the 26th were as high as about $150 per MMBtu. Since the 23rd, winter storms have swept most parts of the United States, bringing widespread snowfall, sleet and low-temperature weather. U.S. media reported on the 26th that the snowstorm has caused a total of 30 deaths in multiple states.

**Commentary**: Bank of China Securities believes that international oil prices are facing pressure from tariff policies and OPEC+ production increases in the short term, but geopolitical risk premiums, OPEC+’s intervention capabilities, and global demand resilience are expected to support the bottom of oil prices; on the other hand, macro-level uncertainties may increase the volatility of oil prices.

3. **Artificial Intelligence** | On January 27, DeepSeek officially released its new-generation document recognition model DeepSeek-OCR2. The core upgrade of the model lies in its self-developed visual encoder DeepEncoder V2, which realizes dynamic semantic rearrangement of visual tokens through the collaboration of bidirectional and causal attention, which is closer to human reading logic. Research institutions believe that from the end of 2025 to the beginning of 2026, the accelerated implementation of AI applications has shown a trend. From Meta’s acquisition of Manus, Apple’s cooperation with Google, Alibaba’s high-profile entry into the AI cloud market and the integration of the Alibaba ecosystem with the Qianwen app, this trend will continue to deepen in 2026.

**Commentary**: Shanghai Securities News pointed out that DeepSeek’s V4 is expected to be launched in February with leading performance, which is expected to bring significant profit pressure to overseas closed-model vendors, thereby profoundly changing the global AI market competition pattern and industrial ecology.

4. **Brain Science** | According to Securities Times, the 2026 Brain-Computer Interface Developer Conference will be held at the Wanda Vista Tianjin Hotel from February 3 to 4, 2026. Hosted jointly by the Brain-Computer Interface Industry Alliance, the Haihe Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interaction and Human-Machine Symbiosis, and Tianjin University, the conference is themed "Technology Open Source, Ecological Co-construction, and Industrial Implementation", aiming to promote the transformation of brain-computer interface technology from the laboratory to commercial applications.

**Commentary**: Reports pointed out that the current brain-computer interface industry is accelerating its transition from laboratory to clinical and consumer applications. At the policy level, brain-computer interface has been included in the key development direction of the "15th Five-Year Plan". In 2025, the National Healthcare Security Administration set up an independent charging item for the first time, and many regions have introduced detailed medical insurance payment rules, opening up the "product + payment" closed loop, and giving priority to approval channels to accelerate the launch of invasive products. In terms of technological progress, non-invasive products have been mass-produced for rehabilitation and concentration training. Neuralink will start the "large-scale production" of brain-computer interface devices this year and shift to a more streamlined and almost fully automated surgical process. Driven by strong policies and accelerated technological breakthroughs, brain-computer interface is expected to usher in the first year of commercial implementation, and the market space will accelerate to open up.

### Today's News Preview

- The Federal Reserve announces its interest rate decision, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell holds a monetary policy press conference.

- The Bank of Japan releases the minutes of its December monetary policy meeting.

- The Bank of Canada announces its policy rate.

- Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, ASML, and IBM release their financial reports.

- U.S. EIA crude oil inventory changes last week.

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