Shanghai, Mar 9, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) – In early March 2026, Huatai Securities held its 2026 Spring Investment Summit in Shanghai. Convened under the banner of seizing opportunity, embracing innovation and planning for the long term, the summit brought together investors, corporates and policy experts to examine market dynamics amid a period of profound structural change and to identify forward-looking investment opportunities.
The two-day event featured a flagship plenary session alongside 11 sector-focused forums, addressing a broad range of market-defining topics, including the outlook for US politics, defense technology, policy interpretation following China’s “Two Sessions”, and the macroeconomic and market outlook for 2026.
In her opening remarks, Dr. LIANG Hong, Chair of the Institutional Business Committee at Huatai Securities, observed that China is at a critical revival moment and delivering a strong start to the 15th Five-Year Plan will be the policy priority in 2026. A convergence of structural forces is reshaping upstream pricing dynamics and industry fundamentals: with PPI turning positive; building a unified national market; deepening supply-side rationalization reforms; the approaching 2030 carbon-peak milestone; elevated resource-security priorities; and a new direction for AI-capex. She noted that the upward re-rating of Chinese assets began in 2025 will broaden and deepen this year, with continued conviction in investment themes spanning technology, power, chemicals and rare metals amid the interplay of geopolitical realignment and the AI supercycle.
Huatai Research’s macro team led in-depth discussions on the current economic backdrop, asset-allocation themes and market strategy.
Focusing on key macro variables, Eva YI, Chief Economist at Huatai Securities, elaborated on what she described as a “more commodity-intensive global capex cycle” — one driven by the infrastructure build-out of AI-related capital expenditure, a renewed upcycle in global defense spending, a trough in China’s real estate construction costs, and a recovery in the global manufacturing cycle. A sustained rebound in PPI, in her view, will serve as the leading indicator of this round of asset re-rating in China.
Against this backdrop, Huatai’s economics research team has recently revised up its forecasts for China’s PPI and the RMB exchange rate. Eva noted that pro-cyclical appreciation of the RMB reflects improving returns on investment and declining risk premia, potentially enabling USD-denominated earnings growth of Chinese corporates to outpace that of major developed markets for the first time since 2021 — which could structurally change global asset allocation landscape.
On the core asset-allocation themes for the year, ZHANG Jiqiang, Head of Huatai Research and Chief Analyst for Fixed Income, highlighted the search for “pricing power” as a defining market narrative. The evolution of the geopolitical order and the AI revolution remain key perspectives in identifying structural opportunities. While global liquidity conditions may soften this year, RMB appreciation and the safe characteristics of Chinese markets are expected to attract capital inflows, with maturing domestic deposits providing additional liquidity support. While near-term uncertainty surrounding Iran remains a key risk, investors are shifting from pure risk-off trading sentiment to pricing in stagflation concerns, as the duration of the conflict remains the critical factor to consider.
Across asset classes, ZHANG expects equities and commodities to outperform bonds. Structurally, upstream resource sectors are favored over downstream consumption, hardware over software, and export-oriented industries are likely to retain competitive momentum.
Turning to China’s A-share market, HE Kang, Chief Strategist and Co-Chief for Quantitative Research at Huatai Research, pointed to two pivotal shifts — changes in the AI narrative and expectations for a return to positive PPI — that may validate the annual style call of “rebalancing between the old and new economies”. From late March into April, as macro data and corporate earnings are released, markets are likely to refocus on fundamentals. High-growth segments could cluster in cyclical sectors, manufacturing and TMT, within a backdrop of a structurally differentiated, modest recovery. Overseas expansion will remain a critical variable for earnings improvement. Should first-quarter macro data surprise to the upside, large-cap value stocks that are more sensitive to fundamental recovery could see scope for style rotation.
He also highlighted that quantitative models suggest equities and commodities tend to benefit in an environment of ample liquidity and moderately rising inflation. In particular, commodities may see the resonance of short- and medium-term cycles in the second half of the year, offering stronger potential gains — a view consistent with Huatai economics research team’s broader thesis of a global commodity-intensive supercycle.
On Hong Kong equities, LI Yujie, Strategist at Huatai Research, argued that the market’s primary driver in 2026 has shifted from valuation and liquidity to earnings. Expectations for profit recovery center on three themes: sectors linked to a marginal stabilization in property, such as building materials; pricing opportunities arising from tight supply-demand balances, including lithium mining, livestock and dairy, and transportation; and technological bottlenecks, with a focus on domestically developed semiconductors in the Hong Kong market.
LI underscored that technology remains a clear overarching theme, with debate focused on which segments will ultimately capture value in this wave of innovation. For China’s AI ecosystem, she advised against concentrating exposure solely on upstream chips or downstream applications, advocating instead a bottom-up approach to identifying high-quality companies with competitive potential across the value chain.
The plenary session also welcomed a distinguished lineup of external voices. GUO Kai, Executive President of CF40 Institute, offered his assessment of the macroeconomic outlook. ZHAO Hai, Director of the Department of International Politics at the National Institute for Global Strategy under CASS, addressed the shifting global order. XIE Suming, Member of the Strategic Advisory Committee and Chief Analyst at Yuanwang Think Tank, shared perspectives on defense technology innovation.