Daily focus：SMIC (981)
has recently become the focus of the semiconductor market, driven primarily by its price increase strategy. According to the latest market news, due to continued supply shortages, SMIC has officially issued price increase notices to some customers, with an increase of approximately 10%, indicating that the company has successfully emerged from the bottom of the cycle and regained market pricing power.
Initial jobless claims fell below expectations
The U.S. Labor Department reported on Wednesday that initial jobless claims unexpectedly dropped to 214,000, better than the market expectation of 224,000. This data provides strong support for the "soft landing" narrative. From a macro perspective, the highly resilient labor market means that U.S. companies have not laid off workers on a large scale, and consumers' wage income expectations remain stable, which will continue to support consumer spending, a major component of GDP. However, overly strong employment data is a double-edged sword, suggesting that the Federal Reserve lacks urgency to cut interest rates significantly in early 2026, and monetary policy may maintain a slow pace of "precautionary rate cuts."
Hong Kong Stock Connect saw a net outflow of HK$1.17 billion last Wednesday. SMIC (981) saw the largest net inflow at HK$490 million, followed by Agricultural Bank of China (1288); China Mobile (0941) saw the largest net outflow at HK$711 million, followed by Tencent Holdings (700).
On the eve of the Christmas holidays, Hong Kong stock market only traded for half a day today (24th). The HSI opened 5 points higher and the gains once expanded to 116 points before narrowing significantly, closing at 25,818, up 44 points or 0.17%. The HSCEI rose slightly by 1 point to close at 8,915; the HSTECH rose 10 points or 0.19% to close at 5,499. Total market turnover was HK$92.5bn. The US extended the deadline for imposing tariffs on Chinese chips to June 2027, and SMIC (0981) shares rose 3.1%, making it the best-performing blue-chip stock. Technology stocks showed mixed performance, with Tencent (0700) rising 0.2% while Alibaba (9988) fell 0.8%.
Source: KGI Investment Products and Solutions Department
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