Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: Margin financing balances on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges fell by a combined 14.405 billion yuan on October 16, bringing the two-market total to 2.451756 trillion yuan. The Shanghai exchange’s balance stood at 1.25825 trillion yuan, down 7.237 billion yuan from the previous trading day, while Shenzhen’s balance was 1.193506 trillion yuan, down 7.168 billion yuan.

TREE NEWS reports: South Korea’s KOSPI index narrowed its intraday decline to less than 1% on Thursday, recovering from a steeper drop earlier in the session. The benchmark index had fallen further before paring losses, though the material did not specify the exact level or the drivers behind the move. The index remains in negative territory for the day.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Nikkei 225 index extended its intraday decline to 2%. The benchmark’s slide deepened during the session, with the index down 2% from the prior close. No further details were immediately available.

TREE NEWS reports: Japan’s Nikkei 225 opened 0.9% lower and South Korea’s Kospi opened down 3.2%, with chipmakers leading the declines. SK Hynix fell 4% and Samsung Electronics dropped 3% at the open.

TREE NEWS reports: London spot gold closed at $4,165.175 an ounce on Oct. 16, down more than 25% from its record high earlier this year. Gold-themed wealth management product issuance has been dormant for three months, with Wind data showing Bank of Beijing Wealth Management’s “Chunmou Dingzhiying No. 43 Gold Theme A” launching Sept. 16 as the first such fixed-income-plus product to break the gap. Performance has diverged on position structure, fixed-income base quality and options design.

TREE NEWS reports: Huami New Materials, Tonghui Electronics and Minshidа, three Beijing Stock Exchange-listed companies, disclosed their 2026 third-quarter reports. All three posted year-on-year revenue growth for the first nine months, while profit performance diverged and net operating cash flow increased year on year. Market attention is expected to shift from themes to earnings, with companies showing continued industry strength and sequential profit improvement likely to draw incremental funds.

TREE NEWS reports: Chinese private fund managers say the recent A-share selloff is not a mid-term trend reversal but the result of external disturbances, changes in positioning structure and capital rebalancing. With AI-linked telecom and electronics names retreating, low-crowding utilities and defensive banks and coal stocks have outperformed. Managers are shifting strategy from sector beta to individual stock alpha and from position timing to portfolio structure optimization.

TREE NEWS reports: As of October 18, 3,734 A-share listed companies have implemented cash dividends this year, with total cash payouts exceeding 2 trillion yuan. Buybacks and share purchases by major shareholders have also been密集, signaling stronger commitment to returning capital to investors. Market participants expect more companies and shareholders to increase dividends, buybacks and stake purchases, supporting market-value management and a positive cycle for shareholder rights and ownership structure.

TREE NEWS reports: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both fell more than 5% in pre-market trading on South Korea’s Nextrade platform. The two chipmakers are among the largest constituents of the benchmark Kospi index. No specific reason for the declines was given in the material.

TREE NEWS reports: US equity futures climbed in early Asian trading, with S&P 500 futures gaining 0.3% and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6%. The move signals a firmer open for Wall Street as investors returned to risk assets.

TREE NEWS reports: Jinxin Fund, Southern Fund and Dongcai Fund have become the first Chinese mutual fund companies to disclose their third-quarter 2026 reports, kicking off the quarterly reporting season. During the quarter’s volatile trading, several funds adjusted their holdings while some newer funds built positions quickly. Multiple fund managers struck an optimistic tone on equity assets, favoring companies with improving earnings quality and broad long-term industry growth potential.

TREE NEWS reports: A-share main indexes stabilized on Oct. 15-16 as broad-based ETFs saw sharp increases in trading volume, after the Shanghai Composite briefly fell below the 3,700-point mark during a correction that began in late September. Brokerage strategy reports said the pullback stemmed from overseas macro disturbances combined with internal structural pressures, and that concentrated release of prior positioning pressure plus strong ETF net inflows have made the market’s stage bottom gradually clearer.

TREE NEWS update: China releases third-quarter GDP, retail sales, industrial output, fixed-asset investment and property development investment at 10:00 Beijing time, with the State Council Information Office holding a press conference on the economic data. The 2026 Financial Street Forum opens in Beijing, where heads of the central bank and securities regulator are due to speak. China’s 70-city home price report is due at 09:30.

TREE NEWS update: More than 30 companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s main board disclosed share buyback or shareholder increase plans between the evenings of Oct. 16 and Oct. 18, including at least six new buyback proposals and one shareholder purchase plan, concentrated in semiconductors and electronic materials. Among the firms announcing new buyback plans were Hygon Information, Shengyi Technology, Sugon and Montage Technology, each with a market value above 100 billion yuan.

TREE NEWS reports: As of 18:00 on Oct. 18, 159 A-share companies had released third-quarter earnings forecasts, with 132 issuing positive guidance, Wind data showed. The positive forecasts comprised 98 pre-increases, 13 turnarounds and 21 slight increases, accounting for 83.02% of the total. Sixty-one companies, including Hengli Petrochemical, Lianxun Instruments, Fudan Microelectronics and Hanyu Pharmaceutical, expect net profit attributable to shareholders to rise more than 100% year on year, with seven forecasting gains of over 10x.

TREE NEWS update: Situational Awareness, the fund run by “AI stock god” Leopold, will disclose its third-quarter equity holdings on Nov 16. The fund reportedly returned 439% in the first half on leveraged bets on SanDisk (SNDK) and Micron (MU), but a July selloff in AI stocks cut its portfolio by about 67% in a single month, after which it sold most of its public equity positions, with Citadel taking over a substantial portion.

TREE NEWS reports: US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $228.6 million this week, extending a $681.1 million drain from the prior week and bringing the two-week total to nearly $1 billion. The redemptions leave October deeply in negative territory for the funds, with the month now firmly in the red.

TREE NEWS reports: TD Cowen lifted its price target on Strive to $56 from $44 on Oct. 16, as the company reportedly holds 35,600 BTC after weeks of sustained buying. Strive priced 7 million preferred shares at $90 each, raising about $630 million before fees — a structure that avoids immediate common-stock dilution but requires dividend payments. Strive shares fell 6.1% on Friday, in line with Strategy.

TREE NEWS reports: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index closed up 0.82% at 10,189.77 on Sunday, October 18, recovering from its lowest close since March 16, 2023. The benchmark had closed at 10,106.54 on Thursday, its lowest since early 2023, and touched an intraday low of 10,034.79. Saudi Aramco rose 2.06% to 25.80 riyals, while the Albilad CSOP MSCI Hong Kong China Equity ETF, listed in Saudi Arabia, closed flat at 11.30 riyals.

TREE NEWS update: Strategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor posted Bitcoin tracker information again on October 18, a signal that the company may disclose changes to its Bitcoin holdings the following day. Strategy has typically released Bitcoin position updates one day after Saylor publishes such tracker posts, suggesting a holdings disclosure could come next week.