GMT EIGHT - OPPORTUNITIES IN CHINA

New stock news: Hanfang Pharmaceutical submits application to Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Flagship product is compound Huangbai liquid solution.

According to the disclosure made by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 25, Shandong Hanfang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (referred to as Hanfang Pharmaceutical) has submitted its listing application to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Zhongtai International as its exclusive sponsor.

Application for the issuance of shares to purchase 49% equity in SMIC North has been accepted by the Stock Exchange.

SMIC International (00981) announced that SMIC International Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the "Company") intends to issue shares to the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd., Beijing Integrated Circuit Manufacturing and Equipment Equity Investment Center (Limited Partnership), Beijing Yizhuang International Investment Development Co., Ltd., Zhongguancun Development Group Co., Ltd., and Beijing Industrial Development Investment Management Co., Ltd. to purchase a total of 49% equity of SMIC North Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the "Transaction").

Northbound funds | Northbound trading saw a net sell of 4.057 billion yuan. Northbound investors once again aggressively bought tech stocks, selling Hong Kong-listed ETFs like TRACKER FUND OF HONG KONG (02800).

On February 25, the Hong Kong stock market saw a net outflow of 40.57 billion Hong Kong dollars from northbound trading, with the Hong Kong Stock Connect (Shanghai) seeing a net outflow of 54.95 billion Hong Kong dollars and the Hong Kong Stock Connect (Shenzhen) seeing a net inflow of 14.38 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Southbound funds sold a net of 4.057 billion Hong Kong dollars today.

In terms of Hong Kong Stock Connect (Shanghai), Tencent Holdings and Xiaomi Group-W received net purchases of 546 million Hong Kong dollars and 140 million Hong Kong dollars respectively; Ying Fu Fund had the highest net selling amount at 3.064 billion Hong Kong dollars. In terms of Hong Kong Stock Connect (Shenzhen), Alibaba-W and Meituan-W received net purchases of 776 million Hong Kong dollars and 678 million Hong Kong dollars respectively; Ying Fu Fund had the highest net selling amount at 1.346 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Yancoal Australia (03668) announces that its net profit attributable to shareholders for 2025 is 440 million Australian dollars, a decrease of approximately 64% year-on-year.

Yancoal Australia (03668) announced its performance for the year 2025, with revenue of 5.949 billion Australian dollars, a decrease of approximately 13% year-on-year; shareholders' attributable profit was 440 million Australian dollars, a decrease of approximately 64% year-on-year; basic earnings per share was 33.4 Australian cents, and the final cash dividend per share was 0.1220 Australian dollars.

Tariff "lane change" and medical reform de-intermediation: How will Trump's longest State of the Union address reconfigure the 2026 capital market landscape?

The American President Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address in history, claiming it to be a "turning point of the century" in an attempt to sell his economic plans to the American people.

National Energy Administration: orderly strengthening oil and gas infrastructure interconnection while considering the need for green hydrogen, ammonia, and alcohol pipeline transportation transformation.

The State Energy Administration announced on its official WeChat account today that Liu Hong, Director of the Oil and Gas Department of the State Energy Administration, stated that by 2026, efforts will be made to strengthen the connectivity of oil and gas infrastructure in an orderly manner. This includes continuously improving the national gas pipeline network, strengthening the comprehensive access of incremental imported gas, domestically produced large bases, and large-scale gas storage facilities. The focus will be on optimizing the crude oil and refined oil pipelines locally, while also considering the need for green hydrogen and other transportation transformation, in order to promote the integration and development of oil and gas pipelines with new energy and new business formats.

Chen Maobo: Hong Kong has implemented a system for issuing licenses to stablecoin issuers, and the first batch of licenses will be issued next month.

On February 25th, the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Paul Chan, delivered the government's budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027 in the Legislative Council. Chan stated that Hong Kong has already implemented a licensing regime for stablecoin issuers, and the first batch of licenses will be issued next month. The government and financial regulators will continue to promote licensed issuers to explore more application scenarios in compliance with regulations and controllable risks.

Chen Maobo: Propose to relax the stamp duty exemption criteria for intra-group asset transfers.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan in the "2026 Budget" mentioned that in order to optimize the business environment and facilitate internal restructuring of companies, he proposed to relax the stamp duty exemption criteria for the transfer of assets within a group, in order to expand the scope of eligible associated corporations. The Hong Kong government will submit a bill for the amendment of regulations within the year, and the proposed suggestions will apply to contracts signed from today onwards. Regarding enhancing Hong Kong's role as a major base for corporate finance, Paul Chan indicated that a series of optimization measures will be announced in the middle of the year, including providing additional tax incentives and flexibility for corporate finance centers and their affiliated companies, as well as establishing a pre-approval mechanism. Additionally, with the implementation of the Company Migration Regime last year, Paul Chan mentioned that the Companies Registry has approved 22 cases so far and is currently processing around 20 applications. The government will enhance external publicity to attract more companies to establish themselves in Hong Kong.

Chen Maobo: Hong Kong will actively work with the mainland to accelerate the implementation of the launch of government bond futures in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan delivered the government's budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year today at the Legislative Council. He stated that to enhance connectivity, Hong Kong will actively cooperate with the mainland to accelerate the introduction of sovereign bond futures in Hong Kong, include real estate investment trusts in mutual market access, incorporate RMB trading counters into Stock Connect, and explore ongoing optimization of Bond Connect.

All the way! The storage feast helps drive Korean stocks above 6000 points and soar 42% year-to-date, hitting new highs.

Just over a month after breaking through the previously unimaginable psychological barrier of 5000 points, with the surge in global memory demand injecting strong momentum into South Korea's largest chip manufacturer, the benchmark index of the South Korean stock market has once again surpassed a new milestone.

Lemon sniper Sandisk (SNDK.US): Are you trying to trade it as NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US)? Dream on, you're just selling a commodity!

Benefiting from the super cycle of storage chips, SanDisk has been soaring all the way, but on Tuesday it was dealt a heavy blow by the well-known short-selling institution Citron Research.

Payment giant Stripe is considering acquiring all or part of PayPal's (PYPL.US) business.

According to sources familiar with the matter, payment processing company Stripe is considering acquiring all or part of PayPal's business.

AI narrative welcomes watershed: Anthropic replaces "disruption" with "cooperation," and the software stocks finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic announced partnerships with a range of companies, investors resumed looking for bottom signals in software company stocks that had been hit hard on Tuesday.

CITIC SEC: The Rigidity Narrative and Multi-dimensional Constraints of AI Development

The current valuation of the US stock market's AI sector is at a high level, and is in a crucial race with future profit growth.

The United States imposes a 10% global tariff, Trump has not yet implemented the threat to raise it to 15%.

After the United States Supreme Court ruled last week that certain tariff measures were illegal, the US government swiftly rebuilt the tariff system.

Inflation still above target, several Federal Reserve officials signal "not in a hurry to cut interest rates".

Against a backdrop of inflation still above target and a resilient labor market, several Federal Reserve officials have recently sent out signals that they are not in a hurry to cut interest rates.

Warner Bros. Discovery Corp (WBD.O): Paramount raises cash offer to $31 per share. Paramount's proposal may lead to a better offer.

Apple's first touchscreen Mac computer will adopt the Lively Island interaction interface. The touch screen Apple MacBook Pro model will be released this fall.

Paypal (PYPL.O) is currently up 6.8% with news that Stripe is considering acquiring all or part of Paypal's business.

Spot gold fell below $5130 per ounce, dropping 1.90% intraday.

"AI disrupting everything" sweeping through the stock market, where is the safe haven? Goldman Sachs gives the keyword: HALO

Strategists at Goldman Sachs Group state that as investors seek safe havens from the disruption caused by artificial intelligence, companies with tangible productive assets, i.e. heavy asset-intensive stocks, perform well.

During the Spring Festival, 5.96 billion people traveled domestically.

During this year's 9-day Spring Festival holiday, a total of 5.96 billion domestic trips were made in China, an increase of 0.95 billion compared to the 8-day holiday in 2025; the total spending on domestic travel reached 803.483 billion yuan, an increase of 126.481 billion yuan compared to the 8-day holiday in 2025. Both the number of holiday tourists and spending have reached a historic high, and the national culture and tourism market remains stable and orderly.

The Renminbi to US Dollar spot rate broke through the 6.89 yuan mark in the afternoon, reaching a new high since May 4, 2023.

Zhou Dafu is going to raise prices again.

Recently, there have been rumors in the market that Zhou Dafu will adjust the prices of gold products after the Spring Festival. This price adjustment is expected to be officially implemented in mid-March. Some stores have already received relevant notifications, and the price increase will mainly focus on fixed-price products, with an expected increase of 15%-30%. However, the specific details of the price adjustment and the implementation time are subject to the adjustment of price tags in-store. On February 24th, a salesperson at the Zhou Dafu store in Joy City in Beijing confirmed the price increase to a reporter, saying, "The price increase will be around March 10th. A 29.88-gram Five Emperor's Coin gold bracelet that was priced at 53,800 yuan before the increase will soon be priced at 71,800 yuan. It's currently difficult to find in stock." Based on this calculation, the price increase for this bracelet is over 33%, and the average price per gram after the increase has exceeded 2400 yuan.

During this year's Spring Festival holiday, there was a record high in the number of trips made by new energy vehicles.

The State Energy Administration announced that a total of 602.10 million times of electric vehicle charging were recorded on the 53,300 highway charging piles included in the national charging facility monitoring service platform, with a total charging amount of 14976.75 million kilowatt hours from the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month to the seventh day of the first lunar month. The average daily charging amount reached 1664.08 million kilowatt hours, an increase of 52.01% compared to the previous year's Spring Festival, setting a new historical record.

Hong Kong stock market midday report: Hang Seng Index falls by 1.93%, with weak performance from technology and financial stocks, sharp drop in entertainment sector, semiconductor stocks rising against the trend.

Due to the plunge in the overnight US stocks and geopolitical influences, the three major indexes of the Hong Kong stocks opened low and continued to fall in the morning session. The Hang Seng Technology Index once fell sharply by 2.7%, closing down 2.36% at midday. The Hang Seng Index and the H-share Index both dropped by 1.93% and 2.06% respectively. Big tech stocks, seen as market indicators, collectively performed poorly with Meituan falling over 5% and Tencent breaking below HK$520. Major financial stocks showed weakness, with the Spring Festival box office in 2026 declining by 38.7% compared to the previous year, leading to a sharp drop in entertainment stocks, including Maoyan Entertainment hitting a new low. Gold stocks showed mixed trends. In addition, semiconductor stocks and storage concept stocks rose against the trend, with AI applications "dual giants" Smart Spectrum and MINIMAX-WP showing strong performance.

Legal French and Chinese Analyst OpenAIs Latest Investment Plan: Clear Roadmap for Computing Power Investment, Positive for Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) and Oracle Corporation (ORCL.US)

The stock research department of Paris Bank of France stated that OpenAI's updated artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure capital expenditure plan is favorable for super-scale cloud service providers Microsoft and Oracle.

Huawei's sales revenue will exceed 880 billion RMB by 2025.

On the morning of February 24, the first day of work in the Year of the Horse, Huawei Chairman Liang Hua revealed during a speech at the 2026 Guangdong High-Quality Development Conference that in 2025, Huawei's sales revenue exceeded 880 billion yuan. Liang Hua stated that in 2025, the company will continue to strengthen its core competitiveness, focus strategically, adhere to the path of high-quality development, strive for victory through quality, and work hard to provide competitive products and services for global customers, ensuring the overall stable operation of the company.

Supreme Court: Judicial interpretation on civil compensation for insider trading, market manipulation, etc. will be formulated in 2026.

On February 24th, Wang Chuang, the head of the second civil division of the Supreme People's Court, stated at a press conference that in 2026, the national courts will continue to fully utilize their judicial functions in civil and commercial trials. The next step will be to formulate judicial interpretations on civil compensation for insider trading and market manipulation in securities markets, conduct in-depth research on judicial responses to new types of financial cases such as private equity funds and virtual currencies, and improve the financial judicial security system.

Trump's frequent changes in tariffs ignite risk aversion sentiment, causing gold to return strongly above $5200.

Driven by the influx of safe-haven buying triggered by the uncertainty of U.S. tariff policies, the precious metals market started the week strong. Gold futures prices climbed above $5200 per ounce, while silver broke through $85 per ounce, continuing its upward momentum from before.

The one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates (LPR) remained unchanged at 3% and 3.5% respectively.

The central bank will keep the one-year and five-year loan market quoted interest rates unchanged at 3% and 3.5% respectively, maintaining them unchanged for nine consecutive months.

Exciting finale of the Spring Festival box office! In 2026, China's movie box office leads the global movie market.

The total box office of the 2026 Spring Festival season ended with a record of 5.752 billion yuan, with the annual total box office of 2026 also exceeding 8.3 billion yuan. At the same time, the cumulative box office of the Chinese film market in 2026 has exceeded 1.2 billion US dollars, surpassing North America's box office record, temporarily ranking first in the world in terms of single market box office. This time, the Chinese film market's temporary ranking as number one in the world in terms of single market box office is not a coincidence, but a necessary result of the strength of Chinese film creation, market potential, and industrial ecology accumulation.

Microsoft has developed glass that can store data for thousands of years.

According to China Science Daily, a Microsoft research team has used high-energy lasers to engrave encoded data on a piece of 3D borosilicate glass, thereby developing a glass-based data storage technology. A square glass measuring 12 centimeters wide and 2 millimeters thick can store 4.8TB of data, equivalent to the data of approximately 2 million printed books. Tests have shown that at a temperature of 290C, this data can be preserved for 10,000 years, and at room temperature, the preservation time could be tens or even hundreds of times longer. The related research was published on February 18 in the journal Nature.

Under the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Longqi Technology has been added as a target stock for the Hong Kong Stock Connect.

Under the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, LongiTech Smart Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has been added as one of the designated securities for the Hong Kong Stock Connect. (Shenzhen Stock Exchange)

The Nikkei 225 index opened at 56764.14 points in the morning, down 0.11%.

Tariff ruling reverses risk appetite Emerging market ETFs attract $430 million in a single day, creating a new record for inflows

Last Friday, as the US Supreme Court rejected US President Trump's global tariff policy, the largest actively managed emerging market stock exchange-traded fund (ETF) saw a significant increase in fund inflows.

Zhongtai: From "recession-proof" to "weak cycle", large banks and joint-stock banks are highly recommended.

There are two main investment themes in bank stocks: one is to invest in city commercial banks with regional advantages and strong predictability, with regions including Jiangsu, Shanghai, Chengdu-Chongqing, Shandong, and Fujian. The second is the logic of high dividends and stable growth, with a focus on recommending large banks and joint-stock banks.

Hong Kong stock concept tracking | Spring Festival humanoid Siasun Robot & Automation skyrocketed! Institutions predict that this year the industry chain will enter a phase of significant volume growth (including concept stocks)

Analysts believe that the performance of humanoid robots at the 2026 Spring Festival Gala is not only a concentrated display of the rapid iteration of domestic chain technology, but also marks the industry's transition from the verification stage of "0 to 1" to the mass production of "1 to 10."

Soochow: Solid-state batteries will enter a critical period in 2026, expected to bring a large-scale market rally.

The industry believes that the core catalyst for 2026 lies in the bidding of GWh-level production lines and road tests of solid-state related vehicle models, which is expected to bring about a market trend similar to that of 2025. It is recommended to pay close attention to the bidding situation of top enterprises' production lines, as well as new vehicle models that will be included in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's declaration list.

JPMorgan Chase predicts that investment banking fees will increase by around 15%, and may rise to nearly 20% in the first quarter of 2023.

Boosted by strong semiconductor exports and a rally in the stock market, consumer confidence in South Korea reached a new high in February, the highest level since November last year.

Consumer confidence in South Korea significantly rebounded in February, reaching the highest level since November last year.

After the weight loss drug of Novo Nordisk did not perform as well as Lilly's drug in the trial, Lilly's stock price rose 2.1% in pre-market trading.

The US Supreme Court's ruling reshapes market pricing logic! China and India's export chains emerge as the biggest winners, and Hong Kong stocks welcome a soaring moment.

China and India have become the biggest winners of the US Supreme Court's decision to block Trump's tariffs.

European stocks opened higher, with Germany's DAX index up 0.87%, the UK's FTSE 100 index up 0.56%, France's CAC 40 index up 1.39%, the Euro Stoxx 50 index up 1.06%, and Italy's FTSE MIB index up 1.51%.

In 2026, the box office revenue of the movie exceeded 8 billion yuan.

According to data from online platforms, as of now, the total box office revenue for the year 2026 has exceeded 8 billion.

HK Stock Market Move | Lithium battery concept stocks rose, with REPT BATTERO (00666) rising more than 12% and CALB (03931) rising more than 7%.

The concept stocks of lithium batteries have increased, as of the time of writing, Ruipulan Jun (00666) rose by 12.17% to HK$15.49; Zhongchuang Innovation (03931) rose by 7.58% to HK$28.4; Longpan Technology (02465) rose by 3.21% to HK$10.92; and Ningde Times (03750) rose by 2.28% to HK$538.

Former Bank of Japan Policy Board Member: If the yen depreciates again before the Japan-US summit, the earliest rate hike may be in March.

Makoto Sakurai, former member of the Bank of Japan's policy board, stated that if the yen starts to weaken again before the scheduled Japan-US summit meeting this month, the Bank of Japan could potentially raise interest rates as early as March.

The Hang Seng Technology Index has risen by over 4%, now trading at 5420.410 points; the Hang Seng Index is currently up by 2.796%.

HK Stock Market Move | Golden stocks collectively opened higher in the morning, Middle East situation remained tense, international gold and silver prices rose simultaneously during trading.

Gold stocks opened higher this morning. As of the time of writing, China Gold International (02099) rose by 3.94% to 198 Hong Kong dollars; Zijin Mining (02899) rose by 2.95% to 43.9 Hong Kong dollars; Zhaojin Mining (01818) rose by 2.56% to 32 Hong Kong dollars; and Zhaojin Mining (01818) rose by 2.47% to 16.98 Hong Kong dollars.

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