Global market dynamics and news summary

Global Market Dynamics and News Summary

I. Market Overview

Last Friday, U.S. stocks opened slightly higher after the release of U.S. CPI data, but due to factors such as the University of Michigan consumer confidence index hitting an all-time low and the uncertain prospect of U.S.-Iran negotiations over the weekend, U.S. stocks showed a differentiated trend. The S&P 500 index fell slightly by 0.11% but still recorded its best weekly gain so far this year; the semiconductor sector performed strongly, hitting a new high, driving the Nasdaq index to close up 0.35%.

In terms of individual stocks, chipmakers led the semiconductor sector higher. Broadcom rose 4.7%, Nvidia gained 2.6%, Intel climbed 1% with a weekly increase of 24% (its best weekly performance since January 2000), and CoreWeave soared 10.9%. Financial stocks came under pressure ahead of the release of major banks' earnings reports.

In the bond and foreign exchange markets, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose 5 basis points to 4.32% at one point last Friday, fluctuating flat throughout the week with a trend of first falling and then rising; the U.S. dollar fell for two consecutive days, dropping a cumulative 1.5% for the week.

In the commodity market, spot gold closed slightly down 0.2% but still rose about 1.6% for the week, achieving three consecutive weeks of gains. Since testing the low near the 200-day moving average on March 23, it has risen more than 18% cumulatively; WTI May crude oil futures fell 1.33%, retreating sharply from the weekly high and recording the largest weekly drop since 2020, but the price remains much higher than the pre-war level.

In the early morning of Monday Asian time, due to the deadlock in U.S.-Iran negotiations, Brent and WTI crude oil futures opened with an 8% jump, U.S. stock index futures all opened more than 1% lower, the U.S. dollar rose more than 0.4%, and spot gold and spot silver opened more than 2% lower.

II. Key News

(I) Domestic News

The Taiwan Affairs Office of the Central Committee authorized the release of ten policy measures to promote cross-strait exchanges and cooperation, mainly including: promoting the resumption of individual travel pilot programs for residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to Taiwan (main island); promoting the connection of water, electricity, gas and bridges between coastal areas of Fujian and Kinmen and Matsu when conditions are met to enhance the well-being of residents in Kinmen and Matsu; promoting the full normalization of cross-strait direct air passenger flights, supporting the early resumption of cross-strait flights in cities such as Urumqi, Xi'an, Harbin, Kunming and Lanzhou, and supporting Kinmen to share Xiamen New Airport.

(II) Overseas News

1. U.S.-Iran Negotiations End Without Agreement: Iran stated that due to "U.S. greed and ambition", the two sides failed to reach an agreement and are not in a hurry to negotiate again; U.S. Vice President Pence said that the U.S. side has shown "considerable flexibility and sincerity" and has put forward a "final plan" to Iran waiting for a response. After the breakdown of the negotiations, Trump issued multiple threats, stating that if Iran refuses to compromise, it will control the Strait of Hormuz to hit its economy, not allow Iran to make money from selling oil, and instructed the U.S. military to intercept ships paying tolls to Iran and clear mines in the strait. The U.S. Central Command announced that it will impose a blockade on all maritime traffic in and out of Iranian ports starting at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on April 13.

2. Core Sticking Points of U.S.-Iran Negotiations: The control of the Strait of Hormuz, enriched uranium stockpiles and tens of billions of frozen funds have become the three core differences. Iran refused the U.S. request for "joint control" of the Strait of Hormuz, insisting on control and toll rights; the U.S. demanded that Iran hand over about 900 pounds of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium stockpiles and did not accept Iran's counter-proposal; Iran demanded the unfreezing of about 27 billion US dollars of overseas assets for post-war reconstruction, which was rejected by the U.S. During the negotiations, a U.S. destroyer forced its way through the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran issued a "30-minute sinking" warning, with both sides eventually backing down. In addition, two supertankers turned around when approaching key checkpoints in the Strait of Hormuz, reflecting market concerns about the situation in the strait.

3. AI Industry Dynamics: OpenAI CEO Altman revealed that his San Francisco residence was attacked by a man throwing incendiary devices, an incident that aroused market concern about AI panic; Anthropic has risen comprehensively, with its revenue, valuation and B-end market share surpassing OpenAI, becoming the focus of the industry.

4. Crude Oil Trading Giant Suffers Losses: Chinese-American star derivatives trader Yaoyao Liu of crude oil trading giant Vitol Group suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses due to wrong bets on oil derivatives at the beginning of the Iran war. He bet that diesel would rise relative to jet fuel and Dubai crude would fall relative to Brent, but the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz caused jet fuel to soar by more than 70%, inflicting heavy losses on his positions.

III. Market Closing Quotes

(I) U.S. and European Stocks

The S&P 500 index fell 0.11% to 6,816.89 points, with a cumulative weekly increase of 3.56%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.56% to 47,916.57 points, with a cumulative weekly increase of 3.04%; the Nasdaq index rose 0.35% to 22,902.894 points, with a cumulative weekly increase of 4.68%.

(II) A-Share Market

The Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,986.22 points, up 0.51%; the Shenzhen Component Index closed at 14,309.47 points, up 2.24%; the ChiNext Index closed at 3,448.79 points, up 3.78%.

(III) Bond Market

The 10-year U.S. benchmark Treasury yield rose 3.97 basis points to 4.3150%, with a cumulative weekly decrease of 2.36 basis points; the 2-year U.S. Treasury yield rose 3.48 basis points to 3.8015%, with a cumulative weekly decrease of 4.01 basis points.

(IV) Commodity Market

WTI May crude oil futures closed down 1.33% at 96.57 US dollars per barrel, the largest single-week drop since 2020; Brent June crude oil futures closed at 95.20 US dollars per barrel. Spot gold fell 0.34% to 4,750.39 US dollars per ounce, with a cumulative weekly increase of 1.57%.

IV. Selected Research Reports

1. U.S. Inflation Pressure Emerges: Shenwan Research pointed out that the secondary effect of the "oil price shock" and the positive turn of China's PPI are transmitting to U.S. inflation. If the spot crude oil price remains above 110 US dollars per barrel until May, China's PPI year-on-year may further rise to around 2.0% in April and May.

2. Gold Trend Analysis: Guotai Haitong stated that gold is an excellent investment choice in the stagflation era. The annualized return rate of gold reached 32.5% and 45.2% during 1970-1974 and 1977-1980 respectively; the core determining gold prices is real interest rates (the relative speed of inflation expectations and nominal interest rates), and the impact of the Middle East conflict on long-term inflation expectations will become a key variable.

3. Crude Oil Market Warning: Macquarie warned that if the Middle East conflict continues until June, oil prices may exceed 200 US dollars. Currently, the spot crude oil market has experienced an imbalance between supply and demand, with 40 buy orders corresponding to only 4 sell orders in the North Sea market, and the spot Brent once hit a historical peak of 144 US dollars.

4. AI Industry Prospects: Morgan Stanley believes that the market has seriously underestimated the explosive power of the AI revolution. Top large models are experiencing "non-linear capability leap", the global Token usage has surged by 250% within three months, the growth rate of computing power demand is 3 times that of Nvidia's supply, and the supply-demand gap will expand in the long term; U.S. data centers will face a 55 GW power gap from 2025 to 2028.

5. Market Main Line Prediction: CITIC Securities believes that after the tail risk of the war cools down, the market will shift from "pricing expectations" to "pricing reality", and funds will focus on four main lines: AI hardware, resources, cyclical price increases and dividends, with expected gap opportunities hidden in domestic AI hardware and cyclical price increase links.

V. Macroeconomic Dynamics

(I) Domestic Macroeconomics

China's CPI rose moderately by 1% year-on-year in March, down 0.7% month-on-month, mainly affected by the seasonal decline in food and service prices; PPI rose 0.5% year-on-year, the first increase after 41 consecutive months of decline, and rose 1.0% month-on-month, the largest increase in 48 months, mainly driven by the sharp rise in international crude oil and other prices, among which the price of the oil and gas extraction industry rose 15.8% month-on-month.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission issued opinions on the ChiNext reform, adding a fourth set of listing standards to support high-quality unprofitable innovative enterprises; piloting local governments to push information on proposed listed enterprises, optimizing refinancing, mergers and acquisitions, equity incentives systems, introducing market maker and other trading mechanisms, while emphasizing strict access control and cracking down on financial fraud.

(II) Overseas Macroeconomics

1. U.S. Inflation Data: U.S. CPI rose 3.3% year-on-year in March, lower than expected, and 0.9% month-on-month, the largest increase in nearly four years, with gasoline prices rising at the fastest pace since 1967; core CPI rose 0.2% month-on-month, slightly lower than expected, but the secondary transmission effect of the energy shock is expected to appear in April, bringing the discussion of the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike back into view and putting pressure on the expectation of interest rate cuts within the year.

2. Weak Consumer Confidence: The initial value of the University of Michigan consumer confidence index in the U.S. in April was 47.6, far lower than the expected 51.5, hitting an all-time low; the initial value of the 1-year inflation expectation was 4.8%, higher than the expected 4.2%, and the initial value of the 5-year inflation expectation was 3.4%, consistent with expectations.

3. Other Dynamics: The U.S. Court of International Trade re-examined Trump's 10% global import tariff, questioning its legality; the White House urged Wall Street to urgently test the cyber risks of Anthropic's model Mythos; foreign capital has withdrawn a record 18.84 billion US dollars from the Indian stock market in the past three months this year; as the Middle East conflict intensifies, Gulf tycoons and capital are accelerating their influx into the Swiss town of Zug.

VI. Overseas Company Dynamics

Trump personally endorsed Palantir, saying it "has proven to have excellent combat capabilities and equipment". Earlier, "Big Short" Burry shorted Palantir, and after Trump's post, he still said he would not close his position and insisted on a bearish stance. It is reported that Palantir is deeply bound to the current U.S. government, maintains close cooperation with multiple federal agencies, and many former employees have entered government positions.

VII. Industry/Concept Focus

1. Controlled Nuclear Fusion: Nova Fusion Energy Technology completed a 700 million yuan Angel+ round of financing, with a cumulative financing of 1.2 billion yuan within one year of its establishment. The FRC-SMR technology route it focuses on is suitable for the power demand of future AI supercomputing centers. China's core technologies in this field have reached the world's leading level, and commercialization is expected to be realized after 2030.

2. RISC-V: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly identified accelerating the development of the RISC-V industry as a key task of the "15th Five-Year Plan" for the electronic information manufacturing industry. It is expected that the global total shipment of RISC-V chips will reach 35.9 billion in 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 31.7% and a market size exceeding 300 billion US dollars.

3. Humanoid Robots: UBTech's H1 humanoid robot reached a running speed of 10m/s, breaking the world record; the 2026 Humanoid Robot Half Marathon will start in Yizhuang, Beijing on April 19, with the number of participating teams increasing nearly 5 times compared with last year, and the large-scale application of autonomous navigation technology has become a highlight.

4. Optical Communication: U.S. optical communication leader Lumentum stated that the demand for its optical communication components from U.S. giant AI data centers is accelerating, and the company expects to sell out its 2028 production capacity within two quarters, with strong industry demand.

5. LiDAR: Sagitar Juchuang's total LiDAR sales in Q1 2026 were 330,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 204.1%. Tudatong expects annual shipments to exceed 10 million units; Hesai Technology predicts shipments will double to 3-3.5 million units. In 2025, the pre-installed standard configuration of LiDAR in China's passenger car market reached 32.484 million units, a year-on-year increase of 112.07%, with a penetration rate of 20.48% in new energy vehicles. With the implementation of the AEB strong standard and the advancement of "oil-electricity intelligence", LiDAR will extend to the fuel vehicle market, and demand will continue to be released.

6. Foldable Screens: Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Fold, is progressing smoothly in trial production and is planned to be unveiled at the September autumn press conference, going on sale simultaneously with the iPhone 18 Pro series. It has currently entered the DVT trial production stage at Foxconn. The expected price exceeds 2,000 US dollars, adopting a liquid metal hinge (yield rate of about 65%), with an initial order of 7-8 million units. Apple's entry is expected to drive the explosive growth of the foldable screen market.

7. Real Estate: Since 2026, the second-hand housing market in first-tier cities has shown a strong recovery. On April 11, the daily online signing volume of second-hand housing in Shanghai reached 1,632 units, a 5-year high; the transaction volume in March after the "Shanghai Seven Measures" new policy hit a 5-year high. This year, various regions have issued a total of about 160 real estate policies, among which the optimization frequency of provident fund policies ranks first, and market confidence is gradually recovering.

VIII. Today's News Preview

- Release of China's March financial data

- Opening of the 6th China International Consumer Products Expo in Hainan

- Release of U.S. March government budget and March existing home sales data

- Holdings of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings

- Speech by Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda

- Release of OPEC's monthly crude oil market report

- Goldman Sachs releases earnings report

- Launch of Apple's Apple Business

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