Zhitong Hong Kong Stock Exchange Unravels | The wave of global bond sell-offs is dragging down the stock market midterm elections, Trump supports AI

[Anatomy Dashboard]

Another difficult day. US 10-year Treasury yields rose as high as 4 basis points to 5.02% on Tuesday, the highest level in nearly 20 years. Japan's 30-year Treasury yield rose 5.5 basis points to 4.12%, Australian 10-year Treasury yields climbed 9 basis points to 5.42%, and the wave of global bond sell-offs continued to spread. Japan's TOPIX index fell 0.7%. South Korea's KOSPI index fell more than 1.5% during the intraday period, and A-shares also showed a poor trend. The transaction of 1.6 trillion yuan refreshed the previous position on April 7. Hong Kong stocks gradually weakened throughout the day, falling 1% at the close.

The US midterm elections are getting closer, and Trump is currently in an extremely unfavorable situation. Not only has America's attack on Iran been unsuccessful; it has caused both straits to get out of control, and bases in the Middle East have also been bombed 7,788. There is a huge consumption of weapons and ammunition, and there are many complaints about human casualties. The latest polls have dropped to the lowest level in history.

What's worse is that AI, which has high hopes, has also become a hot topic in US politics due to regulatory issues. According to recent NBC poll data, about two-thirds of Americans believe that AI poses a high risk to society, and voters generally oppose the rapid construction of AI data centers. The Democratic Party is speeding up the transformation of this into political capital. Senior left-wing Senator Sanders and far-right political activist Bannon have formed a rare alliance to jointly demand stricter restrictions on AI technology; the Republican Party is also torn apart. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is openly opposed to Vance, and Treasury Secretary Bezent and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross tend to support stronger protective measures. Trump responded urgently and publicly called Hwang In-hoon: The AI risk is a “conspiracy” similar to the “global warming scam.” The data center is the future of oil, so it can be seen that Trump is really anxious this time around. Hwang In-hoon also voiced: “The AI Doomsday Theory” is “not about science”, and RSI is by no means “uncontrolled black magic.” Trump called Hwang In-hoon to find the right person. Nvidia is also anxious. If they don't develop AI, who is selling its chips to? Trump is also planning to hold special talks with AI industry leaders. Currently, related matters are being prepared and advanced, but the exact time and schedule have not yet been finalized. The biggest players have expressed their support for AI, and the market is bound to give face. South Korea's Hynix and Samsung all picked up, and Hong Kong stocks of Lanqi Technology (06809), GigaYi Innovation (03986), and Tianshu Zhixin (09903) all rose by more than 4%. It is estimated that US technology stocks should also rebound tonight.

In terms of boom, PCB is the most certain industry, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 60 series with Rubin architecture is now said to be launched in the first half of 2027. Considering that the GeForce RTX 50 series was no longer able to meet market demand when it went on sale, it is expected that the next generation of products will face a similar situation. This will enhance the continuous upgrading of PCBs to higher multi-layer, high-speed materials, finer circuits, and higher density interconnections. Increased process complexity will drive increased intensity of exposure, drilling, electroplating, and inspection equipment configurations. At present, the expansion of high-speed material production has taken the lead, and production capacity for high-end PCBs remains tight. The subsequent capital expenditure of board manufacturers is expected to continue to increase, and PCB equipment suppliers are expected to take the lead in benefiting from a new round of production expansion. The leading equipment segment, Chiptune (09630), rose more than 3%, Dazu CNC (03200) and Dingtai Hi-Tech (01377) rose more than 4%, and Jiantao Laminated Board (01888), which is the material end of the upstream copper-clad plate, rose more than 3%.

The AI office war has officially started, and Byte AI's office has been reorganized: Doubao, Feishu, and Volcano Engine all in one. Specifically, Doubao provides intelligence and agent capabilities, the volcano engine provides models, computing power, and enterprise services, and Feishu carries the enterprise's collaborative environment and work site. Currently, Tencent (00700) WorkBuddy occupies a leading position on this track. According to statistics on the AI product list, WorkBuddy's monthly activity reached 11.15 million in July, which also ranks first in the AI office market of about 30 million, and Tencent's market investment has also improved markedly. WorkBuddy's offline advertising costs alone in the four cities of northern Guangshen are close to 100 million yuan, according to media estimates. Ali (09988) integrated the three products QoderWork, MuleRun, and Goku into “Thousand Questions Office” at the beginning of last month, officially began public testing, and plans to fully access DingTalk. So far, all three tech giants have completed or are close to completing internal integration of AI office services. Tencent (00700), Ali (09988), and NetEase (09999) have instead stabilized over the past two days.

The trend is also active. The group of newly introduced varieties led by Haiqing Zhiyuan (01392), mentioned yesterday, once again rose by nearly 12%. White Pigeon Online (02672): AI risk control MaaS model service. MaaS business revenue in the first 8 months was +579.8%. The scenario was an insurance intermediary. In 2025, the leading Internet insurance intermediary in the third-party scenario ranked first with a market share of 3.1%. Today's increase is over 5%.

The direction of introducing related medical devices and surgical robots has been explored. The “15th Five-Year Plan” of medical insurance focuses on supporting innovative technology, encouraging domestic replacement of high-end medical devices, and speeding up registration and approval of innovative devices. True Health Care (02697): Revenue skyrocketed 31 times, orders of 100 million yuan landed, and commercialization of piercing robots began, surging more than 30% today; Jinhai Medical Technology (02225): Earnings in the first half of the year increased 134.16% year-on-year to SGD 34,021 million, and revenue related to minimally invasive surgical solutions and medical products accounted for 74.73% of total revenue, up more than 7%; Fu Liye (03625) is mainly engaged in audio amplifier chips and tactile feedback chips, which can also be used on humanoid robots that are dexterous and smart, and today it is nearly 8%; Tianxing Medical (01609) Recently, it received the EU New Medical Device Regulation (CE MDR) certification. It is the first sports medicine manufacturer in China to obtain CE MDR certification for its entire product line. The commercialization of sports medicine surgical robots has accelerated, with an increase of nearly 5%.

According to a recent analysis by Norwegian consulting agency Rystad Energy, the expansion of offshore wind power in Europe is facing structural supply constraints. Since 2020, the sales price of complete offshore fans (in MW) has increased by 40% to 45%, far exceeding the 20% to 25% increase in manufacturing costs during the same period. This directly stimulated the market's strong expectations for an improvement in the gross profit margin of domestic wind power core components and complete machinery exports. Leading machine and parts manufacturer Daikin Heavy Industries (01081): Mainly engaged in seabreeze infrastructure such as single piles and towers, with 500,000 tons of production capacity, self-built fleet DAP delivery capacity, and SBTi international certification. The European market share reached 29.1% in the first half of 2025; an increase of nearly 11%.

[Section Focus]

The US Environmental Protection Agency announced on the 14th the lifting of restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired and natural gas power plants, and plans to introduce another measure to ban possible future regulations.

The background is the explosion of AI computing power in the US, and the power gap is large; the government believes that strict carbon emission rules will restrict the construction of new coal and gas power plants, which is not conducive to AI data center power supply, so restrictions on fossil power generation are loosened.

The most beneficial one is coal. The main types of Hong Kong stocks are: Yankuang Energy (01171), Yancoal Australia (03668), Shougang Resources (00639), China Shenhua (01088), and China Coal Energy (01898).

[Individual Stock Mining]

Chipboard Micropack (09630): Accelerated production expansion drives high performance, PCB equipment order delivery remains full

The second phase of the company's 2025Q3 production base entered the production capacity climbing stage in 2026H1, and the overall design production capacity reached more than double that of the first phase. The company's 2026 semi-annual report revenue was 1.06 billion yuan, +69.0% year over year; net profit to mother was 281 million yuan, +98.1% year over year; net profit after deducting non-net profit of 277 million yuan, +104% year over year; and operating cash flow of 292 million yuan, a sharp increase of 377% year over year. The gross margin is stable over a long period of 40% - 42%, and the net margin is stable at 20% +.

Comment: The rapid expansion of AI PCB production has led to an increase in upstream LDI demand, and the company's high-end PCB equipment order delivery has remained full. The company's performance in the first half of the year was impressive, with high growth in both profit and cash flow. The company is the only manufacturer of direct writing lithography equipment in the world that commercializes the four major scenarios of PCBs, IC carriers, advanced packaging, and mask plates. In 2025, PCB direct writing devices accounted for 18.8% of the global market, ranking first in the world, surpassing Japan's ORC and Israel's Orbotech (a subsidiary of KLA). The company has benefited from large-scale expansion of AI server high-end PCB (high multi-layer, mSAP process) production. Traditional film exposure reached the limit of the process, LDI penetration rate continued to increase, high-end models continued to be released, and the PCB business gross margin was stable at 40% +.

Second growth curve Pan-Semiconductor, the WLP2000 wafer-level direct writing lithography machine, has been verified by TSMC's CoWoS-L process. It is a scarce large-scale advanced packaging lithography device in China. The value of a single unit is 15-20 million, and the gross profit margin is over 50%, which is higher than the PCB business. Entered the Shennan Circuit and Xing Sen Technology IC carrier board production line to replace domestic BT carrier boards and ABF carrier boards to speed up. Most domestic peers only make PCBs. Very few manufacturers have advanced packaging for mass production models. The racetrack competition pattern is very good, and the barriers are extremely high.

The company has the largest domestic mass production capacity, with an annual production capacity of 1,500 units. The delivery speed is significantly superior to overseas manufacturers, and domestic alternatives continue to seize the share of Japanese, European and American manufacturers. Overseas orders were released, and the overseas shipping cycle began. Factory orders in Thailand and Vietnam grew rapidly, and the logic of going overseas was fulfilled. The company is full of on-hand orders, and the capacity utilization rate is high. The company's new orders for 2026Q1 exceeded 800 million yuan in a single quarter, a record high; the company disclosed that Q2 orders maintained strong growth in the first quarter. PCB orders: Leading PCB manufacturers continue to expand production, and orders for high-end LDI equipment are full. Advanced packaging orders: More than 30 units of WLP2000 equipment are in hand, and the corresponding order amount exceeds 100 million yuan. Leading domestic packaging and testing factories continue to introduce them, and orders for IC carrier board equipment are steadily increasing.

Strong demand for AI has led to increased supply constraints. The company's rapid expansion of AI PCB production has led to high performance growth. WLP2000 wafer-level direct writing lithography equipment has received repeated batch orders, and shipments of advanced packaging equipment have accelerated. The company's full-cycle capacity utilization rate remained high in the first half of the year. Orders for a full range of equipment were on hand. The number of new orders signed in the first quarter of 2026 exceeded 800 million yuan, and continued the high trend in the second quarter. Among them, orders for high-end equipment with advanced pan-semiconductor packaging and IC carrier boards grew rapidly.

As the leading direct writing lithography equipment in China, Chipboard's products are widely used in the PCB and optical communication fields, and it is expected that it will continue to benefit from the upward trend in the industry. All of the H share overallotment rights have boosted confidence.