Market Insights: April 15th, 2024

Stock Market Dynamics:

• The three major A-share indexes opened on Monday with mixed results, followed by a surge and then a pullback, but they strengthened again later.
• As of the time of writing, the Growth Enterprise Market Index had risen by 1.38%, down from a peak of 2%; the Shanghai Composite Index had increased by 0.06%, and the Shenzhen Component Index by 0.60%.
• The SSE 50 Index's gains expanded to 1%, with some heavyweight stocks performing notably well. For instance, Shanxi Fenjiu and China Railway gained more than 3%, while China Pacific Insurance, China Shipbuilding, and Pien Tze Huang saw their stock prices increase by more than 2%.
• In terms of sectors, banks, airports & shipping, and China Shipbuilding Industry Company sectors led the gains, while gold concepts, non-ferrous metals, and hotel & tourism sectors saw larger declines. Within the Growth Enterprise Market, heavyweight stocks like CATL neared a 4% increase.

Asian Markets:

• In early Asian trading, investors were relatively cautious, with both Japanese and Korean stock markets experiencing declines. The Nikkei 225 Index fell by more than 1%, and the South Korea KOSPI Index decreased by 1.3%.
• Spot gold rose by more than 1.2%, and silver increased by 0.75%.
• Brent crude futures slightly rose, while the performance of the US dollar remained relatively stable, and Bitcoin experienced some rebound.

Operations of China's Central Bank:

• The People's Bank of China conducted a 100 billion yuan MLF operation today, with the winning interest rate at 2.50%, unchanged from before. Additionally, 170 billion yuan of MLF will expire on Wednesday.
• CITIC Securities' Ming team believes the market may continue to look favorably on future monetary easing policies such as rate cuts, reserve requirement ratio reductions, and deposit rate reductions, keeping overall interest rates at a relatively low level.

Economic Data:

• China's exports in March fell by 7.5% year-on-year in USD terms, following a 5.6% growth in the previous month; imports decreased by 1.9% year-on-year, following an 8.2% decrease the previous month.
• Imports of bulk commodities steadily increased in the first quarter, with the growth rate of refined oil and natural gas imports in March exceeding 20% year-on-year.
• Shenwan Hongyuan noted that excluding the impact of the Spring Festival and base effects, China's exports showed a positive growth trend.

International Trade Policy:

• The United States and the United Kingdom announced new trading restrictions on Russian aluminum, copper, and nickel, including prohibiting the London Metal Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from accepting newly produced metals from Russia and banning imports of these three metals from Russia.

Foreign Exchange Market:

• The US dollar continued to rise against the Japanese yen but had not yet experienced intense verbal intervention on Monday. Traders remained vigilant, as during the Japanese market closure, if the dollar bulls continued to increase, they might fall into a trap.
• Investors will pay close attention to whether the 10 yen level mentioned by Japan's Vice Minister of Finance, Makoto Kanda, will reappear.

Hong Kong Stock Market:

• Today, the three major Hong Kong stock indexes opened lower, with the Hang Seng Technology Index ETF fluctuating at low levels, dropping more than 2% at one point.
• Among the holdings, stocks like NIO and Xpeng suffered declines of more than 4%, while tech and internet stocks like Kuaishou, Weibo, and NetEase led the declines.
• On the news front, Baidu Cloud recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the consulting firm KPMG, where both parties will engage in deep cooperation in areas such as large model services, AI-powered services, and security compliance.