Market Insights: April 8th, 2024

Market Dynamics:

• Oil Market: Prices hit a five-month high within five days, with a near 5% increase.
• Gold Market: The weekly gain is close to 5%, marking the largest increase in nearly half a year.
• Non-ferrous Metals Market: London copper bids farewell to its nearly two-year high, but the weekly gain exceeds 5%; London zinc's weekly gain surpasses 8%.
• Cryptocurrency Market: Bitcoin prices hit a new daily low, testing down to $66,000, nearly $3,000 off the daily high.

Asian Stock Market Trends:

• Performance of Chinese Stocks during the US Stock Session: It declined for three consecutive days, but cumulatively gains over the week; Nio’s stock price declines by more than 2%.
• Impact of US Stocks on Asia-Pacific Markets: Overnight US stock plunge dragged down, with the Nikkei 225 Index closing down 2%, and the Hong Kong stock market slightly down, showing a V-shaped trend.

A-share Market Situation:

• Last Week's A-share Index and ETF Market: Last week's main A-share indexes all rose, with the Shanghai Composite Index increasing by 0.92%. The total ETF market increased by 2.969 billion shares week-over-week, a 0.14% increase, with the total scale increasing by 16.814 billion yuan.
• Today's A-share Performance: The three major A-share indexes opened lower, with the Shanghai Index down by 0.39%, Shenzhen Component Index down by 0.34%, and the ChiNext Index down by 0.32%. On the market front, sectors like precious metals, gold concepts, basic metals, tourism hotels, and civil explosion concepts were leading in gains, while the mining industry, smart light poles, marine economy, nuclear pollution control, oil industry, and port shipping sectors were among the top losers.

Other Market Dynamics:

• Foreign Exchange Market: The State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced the scale of foreign exchange reserves at the end of March 2024, which increased by $19.8 billion from the end of February, a growth rate of 0.62%.
• Effect of the Earthquake: An earthquake in Taiwan led to the evacuation of some factories, with equipment temporarily shut down for inspections. The expected impact on work hours is within 6 hours, affecting the second quarter's financial forecast by about $60 million.
• Japan's Intervention Policy: Citigroup strategist Raghav Datla pointed out that if Japan intervenes to support the yen, it could lead to the sale of some of its short-term US Treasury bonds, similar to the intervention periods in September and October 2022, when Japan sold a significant amount of reserve deposits or securities.

Opening Situations of Major Asian Stock Markets:

• FTSE China A50 Index Futures: Initially up by 0.1%.
• Hong Kong Hang Seng Index: Opened down by 0.44%.
• Japanese and Korean Stock Markets: Nikkei 225 Index opened up by 1.03%, South Korea's composite index opened up by 0.17%.