Morning News

# Market Overview

Source: Wall Street见闻 (Wall Street CN)

## Market Overview

Growing AI concerns and reignited tariff war risks sent all three major U.S. stock indices down at least about 1%, with financial and software stocks dragging down U.S. equities.

Anthropic's products pose a threat to programming languages, sending IBM plummeting 13%, its largest single-day drop in 25 years. The financial sector fell over 3%, leading losses in the S&P 500; American Express dropped more than 7%, asset management firms were hammered—KKR fell nearly 9%, and Blue Owl, whose credit funds have been targeted by activist hedge funds, slid over 3%. Tariff-sensitive retail stocks fell across the board, with Wayfair down nearly 10%. Cybersecurity stocks extended their sharp losses from last Friday following the threat posed by Anthropic's new tool, with CrowdStrike tumbling nearly 10%.

Pan-European and UK equity indices retreated from record highs. Novo Nordisk plunged over 16% after trials showed its weight-loss drug was less effective than Eli Lilly's.

U.S. Treasuries rebounded, with the 10-year yield approaching a three-month low. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump-era tariffs, the dollar fell for two consecutive days from four-week highs. Offshore yuan rose above 6.89 during trading, nearing a three-year high.

Bitcoin fell below $64,000 intraday to a more than two-week low, dropping over 5% from its daily high. Gold hit an intraday monthly high, with futures surging more than 3% at one point. Silver futures jumped nearly 8%. Crude oil turned positive by over 1% intraday to hit a six-month high before reversing lower; Brent crude ended its three-day winning streak.

During Asian trading hours, the Hang Seng Tech Index surged over 3%, Meituan rose more than 5%, while "large model dual leaders" Zhipu AI and MINIMAX saw notable pullbacks.

## Key News

### China

- Ministry of Commerce: Urges the U.S. to cancel relevant unilateral tariff measures imposed on trading partners.

- Dark Side of the Moon has become China's fastest company to reach decacorn status, with revenue in the past 20 days exceeding its full-year 2025 total.

### Global

- U.S. Customs: Will cease collecting tariffs ruled illegal by the Supreme Court starting February 24. U.S. Democrats will block any attempts to extend tariffs and push for a mandatory refund scheme. The European Parliament has suspended approval of the EU-U.S. trade agreement. The UK could be the biggest victim of Trump's new tariffs.

- Federal Reserve Governor Waller: CEOs warn AI will lead to massive layoffs; March rate decision hinges on February labor data.

- Trump reportedly considering "small strikes" followed by "major military action" against Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister: A "better deal" than the 2015 nuclear accord is possible.

- A "research report from June 2028": When AI exceeds expectations, the economy collapses. The report triggered sharp declines in food delivery, payment, and software stocks.

- Anthropic claims it can modernize Cobol systems; IBM crashes 13%—its worst drop in 25 years; Claude Code Security sends cybersecurity stocks reeling again.

- NVIDIA launches laptop chips to integrate into the next-gen PC ecosystem, re-entering the consumer PC market.

- Report: ASML reveals EUV light source breakthrough; chip production could rise 50% by 2030.

- One year after the White House launch event, OpenAI's $500 billion "Stargate" project remains stalled without substantive progress.

## Market Closing Levels

### U.S. & European Equities

- S&P 500: -1.04% to 6,837.75

- Dow Jones Industrial Average: -1.66% to 48,804.06

- Nasdaq Composite: -1.13% to 22,627.273

- Europe STOXX 600: -0.45% to 627.70

### A-Shares

- Closed for holiday.

### Bond Market

- U.S. 10-year Treasury yield: -5.36 bps to 4.0290%

- U.S. 2-year Treasury yield: -4 bps to 3.4380%

### Commodities

- Spot Gold: +2.38% to $5,229.70/oz

- Spot Silver: +3.99% to $88.0245/oz

- WTI Crude Oil (April): -$0.27 (-0.38%) to $66.31/bbl

# Detailed News Highlights

## Global Highlights

### China

- **MOFCOM: Urges U.S. to Revoke Unilateral Tariffs on Trading Partners**

The Ministry of Commerce stated that China has consistently opposed all forms of unilateral tariff hikes, repeatedly emphasizing that trade wars have no winners and protectionism leads nowhere. Unilateral U.S. measures such as **reciprocal tariffs** and fentanyl-related tariffs violate both international economic and trade rules and U.S. domestic law, and run counter to the interests of all parties. Facts have repeatedly proven that China and the U.S. stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. China urges the U.S. to revoke relevant unilateral tariff measures imposed on its trading partners. We also note that the U.S. is preparing alternative measures such as trade investigations to maintain tariffs on trading partners; China will closely monitor this and firmly safeguard its own interests.

- **Dark Side of the Moon Becomes China’s Fastest-Growing Decacorn, Revenue in Past 20 Days Exceeds Full-Year 2025**

Public data shows ByteDance took over four years to surpass the $10 billion valuation mark, Pinduoduo over three years, while Kimi soared from a $300 million angel round valuation to over $10 billion in just over two years, multiplying its value more than 30-fold.

### Overseas

- **U.S. Customs to Cease Collecting Tariffs Ruled Illegal by Supreme Court Starting Feb. 24**

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced via its cargo system messaging service on the 22nd that tariffs imposed under the **International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)** will no longer be in effect, and such tariffs will not be collected on goods entering the U.S. consumer market or withdrawn from warehouses for consumption starting Feb. 24 ET. The notice clarified that this tariff suspension does not affect any other tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

- **U.S. Democrats to Block Any Tariff Extension, Push for Mandatory Refunds**

After the Supreme Court struck down last year’s IEEPA-based tariffs including reciprocal tariffs, Trump invoked Section 122, an alternative legal tool, to impose a 15% global tariff. The new duties will expire this summer unless Congress approves an extension. The 15% rate matches tariffs agreed in U.S. trade deals with the EU and other regions; failure to maintain this level could derail investment commitments those regions made under tariff threats. A group of Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation mandating refunds for duties paid under Trump’s previous tariff hikes.

- **EU Parliament Suspends EU-U.S. Trade Deal Approval Amid Trump’s ‘Delay Tactics’ Warning**

Trump warned any country trying to “game” the Supreme Court ruling would face higher tariffs and more severe consequences. Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, said a scheduled vote on the deal Tuesday was postponed as the EU seeks clarity and a clear U.S. commitment to respecting the EU-U.S. agreement, which he called critical.

- **UK Could Be Biggest Victim of Trump’s New Tariffs**

After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s global tariff policy, the UK’s preferential 10% tariff rate risks being raised uniformly to 15%. As one of the few countries previously granted relatively low tariffs, the UK could be the hardest-hit economy, followed by Italy and Singapore. Implementation would increase UK export costs by up to £3 billion and affect around 40,000 businesses.

- **Fed’s Waller: CEOs Warn AI Will Cause Mass Layoffs; March Rate Decision Hinges on Feb. Jobs Data**

Waller welcomed January’s strong jobs data but cautioned it contained “more noise than signal,” noting it was just one month’s figure—especially after revisions showed net job gains in 2025 were near zero. His support for a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting will depend on upcoming labor market data.

- **Trump Reportedly Considering ‘Small Strikes’ Followed by Major Action Against Iran**

Citing sources inside the Trump administration, Xinhua News Agency reported that while no final decision has been made, Trump is leaning toward initial strikes on Iran in the coming days to signal to Iranian leaders they must abandon nuclear weapons capabilities. Targets under consideration range from the IRGC headquarters to Iranian nuclear facilities and ballistic missiles.

- **Iranian FM: ‘Better Deal’ Than 2015 Nuclear Accord Possible**

In an interview with U.S. media, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said a “better deal” than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is achievable, while stressing Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy. Circumstances have changed from a decade ago, and some terms could be far superior to the original agreement.

- **“June 2028 Research Report”: AI Exceeds Expectations, Economy Collapses**

A Citrini Research memo fictionalized an “AI Boom Crisis”: in 2028, despite AI productivity surging past forecasts, it triggered an “economic plague” by decimating white-collar jobs. While corporate profits and computing power dominance expanded, collapsing household incomes stalled the consumption engine, spawning “ghost GDP” and “substitute alternatives.” CITIC Securities believes the Trump administration will likely pursue multiple tariff alternatives while stabilizing trade deal implementation; Section 122 tariffs in place, Section 301 investigations may prove pivotal. However, replicating the full reciprocal tariff regime will be challenging amid rule constraints, congressional pushback, and midterm election pressures. For China, U.S. overall tariff levels may decline due to a “truce period” stability and Trump’s desire to visit China; labor-intensive exports could benefit at least during low-tariff windows.

- **$3.8 Trillion in Unrealized Assets Stuck; Bain: Private Equity Slump Lasts Longer Than 2008**

The U.S. private equity industry is mired in a deeper downturn than 2008: profit distributions hit a 16-year low, with $3.8 trillion in unrealized assets. A Bain report notes high rates and tariff uncertainty force longer holding periods; investors now demand 20% returns, as the industry shifts from粗放 growth to deep value creation.

- **BofA: Trade Oil, Hold Gold for Geopolitics; Two External Shocks Needed to Revive U.S. Stocks**

Hartnett’s latest report lays bare U.S. equities’ awkward predicament: strong fundamentals but overcrowded positioning, with liquidity loosening and capital flowing abroad. Amid geopolitical fog and range-bound stocks, investors should “trade oil” short-term and “hold gold” medium-term. To break the “extremely bullish yet stagnant” gridlock, U.S. stocks need two external shocks: a Middle East oil price crash or a U.S.-China trade détente.

- **Global Miners’ Unified Strategic Bet: Copper**

BofA says nearly all major miners—from BHP and Rio Tinto to Glencore—are prioritizing copper, with capital spending surging to over 50% of prior peaks. BofA forecasts copper will hit $15,000/ton, ending a three-year downturn and entering an earnings upcycle, creating historic investment opportunities.

- **CITIC Securities: Code Explosion, Physical Scarcity**

CITIC Securities argues AI coding advances have pushed global effective code into exponential growth, while physical production value and income expansion lag far behind code generation under current AI constraints. The world will likely first face code bloat, excess execution capacity, fiercer competition, and compressed capital returns. Short-term, A-shares—dominated by manufacturing and financials—are less exposed to AI shocks than U.S. and Hong Kong stocks; capital inflows and bullish sentiment remain intact, with a post-holiday spring rally likely to continue. Price hikes remain a key Q1 allocation theme.

- **Commercial Space’s New Frontier: Space Pharma**

Morgan Stanley says reusable rockets have cut launch costs 10-fold, with pharmaceuticals poised to pioneer commercial viability. Microgravity produces purer, defect-free drug crystals; insulin crystals can be 34x larger than on Earth. Pioneer Varda has recovered HIV drug crystals from space, raising $328 million and targeting monthly returns by 2028. But FDA approval gaps and unproven unit economics mean commercialization requires weekly launch cadence.

## Domestic Macro

- **Spring Festival Consumption: How Strong Is the Momentum?**

Guolian MinSheng Securities notes this holiday saw record passenger flows, diversified travel, booming services, and mixed regional performance. An “early return to work” trend emerged, with segmented vacations (“reunite first, travel later”) gaining traction. Contrasting robust travel, recovery in some big-ticket and discretionary spending remains cautious and uneven. Home appliances and auto sales are still tepid, with policy dividends needing further unlocking.

- **Post-Holiday Themes to Become Clearer**

Guojin Securities says investment is broadening from AI alone to a wider range of real-economy sectors. A relatively smooth U.S. rate-cut path will provide tailwinds for a global manufacturing cycle recovery. This process should reprice China’s asset capacity value, with capital回流 boosting domestic consumption and inflation cycles.

- **Two Themes to Capture the “Bonus Rally”**

Industrial Securities says AI and commodities remain global market focal points. In AI, robots and large models “going viral” at the Spring Festival Gala mark a pivotal shift from concept to commercialization, boosting confidence in domestic AI monetization this year. For commodities, global macro narratives reinforce strategic value, while a new domestic price upcycle enriches hike themes. Looking ahead, March–April will be critical for validating and trading price hikes; as domestic themes expand, price hikes—key to earnings recovery and style broadening—could become a core trading focus.

# Domestic Companies & Industries

### Goldman Sachs on "Spring Festival Gala Robots": Hardware Advances Significantly, Driving Adoption; Underlying AI Is the Key to the Future

Goldman Sachs believes the humanoid robot performances at the Spring Festival Gala mark a notable leap in China’s humanoid robot hardware engineering, yet true AI capabilities remain unproven. Analysts forecast shipments will surge from 20,000 units in 2026 to 76,000 in 2027, representing multiple-fold growth. Supply chain stocks may see a near-term rally, but risks from electric vehicle market pressure and raw material price hikes warrant caution. Long-term breakthroughs hinge on the evolution of AI “world model” technology, which will determine whether the 2035 target of 1.38 million units can be met.

# Overseas Macro

### South Korea’s Stock Market “Global Outperformer” Secret Weapon: A President Who Was Once a “Retail Investor”

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, drawing on his early experience as a retail investor who suffered stock losses, launched aggressive financial reforms upon taking office—strengthening board accountability, reforming dividend taxes, and cracking down on market irregularities. These measures have propelled the KOSPI to surge 36% year-to-date, far exceeding his “KOSPI 5000” target. The reforms have reshaped South Koreans’ wealth mindset, shifting from over-concentration in real assets to financial investment.

# Overseas Companies

### NVIDIA “Stagnates” for Months: Can This Week’s “World’s Most Important Earnings Report” Move the Needle?

If results fail to calm the restless market, ensuing volatility could ripple across the AI sector and the broader market.

### After Quadrupling in Price, SK Hynix Commits to Further Expanding AI Chip Capacity

With its stock soaring more than fourfold over the past year and hitting record profits, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won pledged a massive expansion of HBM “monster chips” to address supply shortages driven by global AI infrastructure buildout. Bolstered by strong demand from customers including NVIDIA, SK Hynix’s 2026 capacity is fully sold out, with profit estimates revised upward to as high as $100 billion.

### Lilly Upgrades Zepbound to Solidify Lead: One Pen for a Full Month! Novo Nordisk Plunges on Clinical Failure

Eli Lilly launched the Zepbound multi-dose KwikPen on Monday, allowing patients to complete four monthly doses with a single pen at a starting price of $299 per month; the device has received FDA approval for expanded labeling. The news lifted Lilly’s stock more than 5% intraday. Meanwhile, rival Novo Nordisk’s next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema failed to meet the primary endpoint of non-inferiority to Zepbound in a head-to-head study, sending its stock plummeting 16%.

# Industries & Concepts

### 1. Gold

As of 20:00 on February 23, gold prices were testing $5,200 per ounce, with COMEX gold futures hitting an intraday high of $5,198.80/oz. During the 2026 Spring Festival holiday (February 16–23, 20:00), the international gold market saw a strong rally after initial volatility, with COMEX gold futures rising more than 2% cumulatively and volatility expanding sharply.

**Commentary**: Analysts note gold’s sharp rally in recent years has drawn more short-term trading capital, whose rapid inflows and outflows have amplified volatility. Despite pullbacks after rapid surges, gold’s financial, monetary, commodity, and safe-haven attributes remain largely unchanged over the long term. The long-term allocation thesis for gold remains intact, but volatility may intensify after each major rally.

### 2. Robotics

At the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, a series of spectacular robot performances captivated audiences and went viral on social media. Magic Atom opened the show with its robots; MagicBot Z1 demonstrated the “Thomas 360” move while performing alongside singers Jordan Chan and Jerry Yan in *智造未来 (Intelligent Future)*. Songyan Power’s robots starred in the skit *奶奶的最爱 (Grandma’s Favorite)* with actresses Cai Ming and Wang Tianfang. Unitree Robotics’ robots traded folk dances for martial arts, performing *武 BOT (Wu Bot)* with the Henan Tagou Martial Arts School. Galaxy General participated in the microfilm *我最难忘的今宵 (My Most Unforgettable Night)* alongside actors Shen Teng and Ma Li.

**Commentary**: Unitree Robotics founder Wang Xingxing stated the G1 and H2 humanoid robots featured marked the global debut of fully autonomous swarm control, achieving the world’s first rapid swarm repositioning with a maximum arbitrary movement speed of 4 m/s. Wang forecasts global humanoid robot shipments will reach at least tens of thousands of units this year, with Unitree targeting 10,000–20,000 units.

### 3. Glass Fiber

According to Jiemian News, suppliers and industry insiders expect glass fiber manufacturers to launch a second round of price hikes amid rising costs and tight supply. Planned monthly increases range from 10% to 15%, potentially doubling prices by year-end if implemented as scheduled. This follows cumulative annual gains of over 50% since 2025.

**Commentary**: Research institutions note specialty fiberglass fabrics have emerged amid the tech era, with large models iterating rapidly—including domestic models as well as Claude Opus 4.6, Gemini 3 DeepThink, and GPT-5.3. As of February 16, MiniMax ranked first on Openrouter with a 22% weekly token call market share, exceeding 50% in programming scenarios.

**Commentary**: Analysts view tokens as the purest derivative of electricity. When U.S. users call APIs from Zhipu or DeepSeek, data travels via Pacific undersea cables to Chinese data centers, where GPUs consume Chinese electricity for inference—electricity never crosses borders, but value is delivered cross-border via tokens. Power and computing account for over 70% of token costs, and China’s low electricity prices are translating into global AI service pricing power. AWS has broken its 20-year “only price cuts” policy with a 15% hike, fundamentally shifting cloud pricing logic; token demand inflation is accelerating upstream.

### 5. 6G

According to *Shangguan News*, Chinese scientists have achieved the world’s first cross-network integration of fiber-optic and wireless communication systems. The domestically developed “Fiber-Wireless Integrated Communication System” has set a new data transmission rate record. The team also simulated a 6G large-scale user access scenario, demonstrating multi-channel real-time 8K video access across 86 channels, with transmission bandwidth more than 10 times higher than current 5G standards. Developed by Peking University in collaboration with Peng Cheng Laboratory and other teams, the breakthrough bridges the “bandwidth gap” between fiber and wireless communications, laying a foundation for 6G development.

**Commentary**: Analysts note rising AI data center computing power and the booming 6G next-gen wireless network demand high-speed, low-latency signal transmission across diverse scenarios. The new system resolves the bandwidth gap and sets a new data rate record, supporting dual-mode fiber-wireless transmission and significantly improving anti-interference capabilities. It makes important contributions to integrated optical and terahertz communication systems, with strong application potential in 6G base stations and wireless data centers.

### 6. New Materials

According to *Guangming Daily*, a team led by Professor Xu Yunhua of Tianjin University, in collaboration with Professor Huang Fei of South China University of Technology and other institutions, has developed an organic cathode material with exceptional electronic conductivity, fast lithium-ion transport, and high energy storage capacity—overcoming bottlenecks of low capacity and poor practicality in traditional organic lithium batteries. Using this material, the team fabricated a flexible organic pouch battery with energy density exceeding 250 Wh/kg, surpassing widely used LFP batteries. The battery operates normally from -70°C to 80°C, with excellent flexibility and safety.

**Commentary**: Mainstream lithium battery cathodes rely on inorganic minerals like cobalt and nickel, facing resource scarcity, high costs, and poor flexibility. In contrast, organic electrode materials such as quinones are widely sourced, with flexibly designable molecular structures and inherent flexibility—seen as promising “green battery stars” that could help China gain an edge in next-gen battery technology.

### 7. AI Diagnostics

According to *The Paper*, a joint team from the School of Artificial Intelligence and Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University has unveiled DeepRare—the world’s first agent-based evidence-based reasoning diagnostic system for rare diseases, offering a Chinese solution to the global challenge of “difficult diagnosis and high misdiagnosis rates” for rare diseases.

**Commentary**: Clinical data validates DeepRare’s superior performance: its top-1 accuracy for pure phenotype diagnosis reaches 57.18%, a 23.79 percentage point improvement over the best international model, breaking the “no gene test, no diagnosis” dilemma. Its diagnostic recall rate surpasses that of rare disease specialists with 10 years of clinical experience. Incorporating genomic sequencing data pushes its top-1 comprehensive diagnostic accuracy for complex cases to 70.61%, outperforming global standard tools. The system’s reasoning reports earned a 95.40% physician satisfaction rate, ensuring evidence-based diagnoses.

# Today’s News Preview

- China’s February 1-year and 5-year Loan Prime Rates (LPR)

- German Chancellor Merz visits China (February 24–26)

- U.S. President Trump delivers the State of the Union address

- Speeches by Fed Governor Cook, Chicago Fed President Goolsbee, Atlanta Fed President Bostic, Boston Fed President Collins, and Richmond Fed President Barkin

- U.S. February Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index

- U.S. December S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price NSA Index

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# Risk Warning & Disclaimer

The market involves risks, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situations, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their specific circumstances. Investment decisions based on this article are at the user’s own risk.