Chinese Market Close: ChiNext Index Up Over 2%, Storage Chips and CPO Concept Stocks Surge

Originally from: Xinhua Finance

Xinhua Finance Beijing, March 18 — The three major A-share indices all closed higher on Wednesday. The Shanghai Composite slightly rose, ending a four-day losing streak. The Shenzhen Component Index increased by over 1%, and the ChiNext Index rose by more than 2%. By the close, the Shanghai Index was at 4,062.98 points, up 0.32%, with a turnover of 876.3 billion yuan; the Shenzhen Composite was at 14,187.20 points, up 1.05%, with a turnover of 1.1697 trillion yuan; and the ChiNext Index was at 3,346.37 points, up 2.02%, with a turnover of 543 billion yuan. The combined trading volume of the Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing markets was 2.06 trillion yuan, down 163.5 billion yuan from the previous trading day.

In terms of sectors, communication services, components, communication equipment, semiconductors, optical optoelectronics, software development, computer equipment, power grid equipment, and consumer electronics led the gains, while liquor, energy metals, and petroleum refining sectors declined.

Market Hotspots

The computing power industry chain surged, with the CPO concept rebounding across the board. The three major光模块 companies all saw significant gains. Liquid cooling servers concepts fluctuated and rose sharply, with Dayuan Pump, Jialitu, Ningbo Jingda, and Qiangrui Technology hitting the daily limit. The computing power leasing concept strengthened, with DataPort, Zhongbei Communications, and YunSai ZhiLian hitting the limit. The compute-electrical synergy concept was active, with ShaoNeng Shares and Guangdong Electric Power A hitting the limit. Storage chip concepts rose, with Baiwei Storage up over 9%, setting a new record high. On the downside, oil and gas stocks weakened, with Intercontinental Oil & Gas and Tongyuan Petroleum falling sharply. The chemical sector declined, with Jinniu Chemical and Lutan Chemical hitting the daily limit.

In individual stocks, over 3,500 stocks rose across the market.

Institutional Views

Jufeng Investment Advisory: The market oscillated on Wednesday, with storage chip sector leading gains. From the current trend, the market has shown clear differentiation, with resource stocks like oil and gas and technology stocks exhibiting a noticeable tug-of-war. Since the external black swan events have not yet subsided, the A-share trend will likely fluctuate. Investors should focus on buying the dips of previously popular industry leaders. In the long term, under policy stimulation, A-shares and the economy are expected to turn upward simultaneously. For medium-term investment, focus on incremental opportunities in high-growth sectors such as semiconductors, consumer electronics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and commercial aerospace.

Huatai Securities: As of late February 2026, the CCPI-raw material price spread was 2,470, the lowest since 2012. With corporate capital expenditure gradually decreasing, supply in the petrochemical industry is expected to improve. Price increases in February were mainly driven by tight supply and strong willingness of leading companies to raise prices. Industry profits have bottomed out in recent years. Under policies like “anti-involution,” supply-side adjustments are expected to accelerate, potentially improving profits for bulk chemicals. In the medium to long term, as high-energy-consuming plants exit in Europe and the US, and with economic growth in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, exports will become a key growth engine for the domestic chemical industry. Since June 2025, industry capital expenditure growth has been declining, but supply-side optimization suggests that industry prosperity may rise in 2026.

Huaxi Securities: Driven by the AI industry, computing power scale is growing rapidly. Although currently, China’s data centers’ electricity consumption accounts for a small proportion of total social electricity use, this proportion is increasing quickly. In the short term, the electricity demand from computing power remains within the support capacity of the power system. Policy-wise, green electricity is expected to increase its capacity to meet computing power demand. With the booming OpenClaw project, demand for AI agents is expected to explode, and the surge in token usage could further boost computing power demand, increasing electricity consumption.

Market News

National Development and Reform Commission: Launches a new batch of major foreign investment projects including electronics manufacturing, chemicals, and automobiles

According to Xinhua News Agency, on the 18th, the National Development and Reform Commission announced a new batch of 13 landmark major foreign investment projects with a planned investment of $13.4 billion. The new projects mainly focus on manufacturing, including electronics, chemicals, automobiles, and electrical machinery, to accelerate industrial cluster development. Support for the service sector will also be increased, with logistics projects included in the list for the first time, and continued support for R&D centers in biomedicine and other fields to promote deep integration of modern services and advanced manufacturing.

Alibaba Cloud AI Computing Power and Storage Products Increase Up to 34%

According to Cailian Press, Alibaba Cloud announced that due to the global surge in AI demand and supply chain price increases, its AI computing power and storage products have increased by up to 34%. Among them, the computing cards such as Pingtou Ge Zhenwu 810E increased by 5%-34%, and the file storage product CPFS (Intelligent Computing Edition) increased by 30%. Insiders revealed that another major reason for the price hike is the “explosive growth in token call volume.” Alibaba Cloud’s MaaS business, Bailian, achieved its highest growth rate from January to March this year. Alibaba Cloud is shifting scarce AI computing resources toward token-related services.

Editor: Luo Hao

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