Industry

  • American Superconductor U.S. stocks continued their gains before the market. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a top laboratory in the United States, issued a document stating that it used density functional theory and GGA+U method for calculations, which provided a theoretical basis for the so-called “superconducting materials at room temperature and normal pressure” by the Korean team recently. Materials research provides new directions and inspirations.
  • China Fund News: Since July, NAND upstream manufacturers have obvious willingness to raise prices, and some main control chips are in urgent demand. In the spot market, DRAM prices have stopped falling since June and have remained flat for two consecutive months, which is the first time this has happened since March 2022.
  • Yonhap News Agency: In July, the local sales of Korean cars were 114,894, a year-on-year decrease of 5.9%. Since August last year, there has been negative growth in 11 months, and the sales volume is also the lowest since January this year. Domestic sales of Hyundai Motor and GM Korea rose 2.1 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.
  • World Gold Council: In the first half of the year, the total global gold demand reached 2,460 tons, a year-on-year increase of 5%. Among them, the global demand for central bank gold purchases reached a record 387 tons in the first half of the year; the total global demand for gold bars and gold coins reached 582 tons; the demand for gold jewelry reached 951 tons. Global gold mine production reached 1,781 tons, an increase of 2% year-on-year and a record high. Total demand for gold bars and coins in China rose 33% year-on-year to 115 tonnes, accounting for 22% of global demand for gold coin bars.
  • Southwest Securities: As of May, China’s official gold reserves reached 2,092 tons, an increase of 7.4%. Starting from the second half of 2022, the gold reserves of central banks around the world will increase significantly, with China, Russia, Turkey, India and other countries contributing the main gold purchases.
  • Zillow: U.S. homeowners will nearly double their willingness to sell if their mortgage rate hits 5 percent or more, but only one in five mortgages meet this standard, and nearly one-third of respondents say the rate is less than 3%. Therefore, mortgage rates are unlikely to return to 5% in the short term.

Industry China

  • In July, Ideal Auto delivered 34,134 vehicles, exceeding 30,000 for two consecutive months, an increase of 227.5% year-on-year; NIO delivered 20,462 vehicles, an increase of 103.6% year-on-year, a record high; Xiaopeng Auto delivered 11,008 new cars , an increase of 28% month-on-month, achieving positive growth for six consecutive months.
  • China Index Institute: From January to July, the total sales of TOP100 real estate companies were 3994.40 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.6%. In July, sales fell 34.1% year-on-year and 33.8% month-on-month. There are 10 real estate companies with sales exceeding 100 billion, which is the same as the same period last year, and 85 real estate companies with sales exceeding 100 billion, which is 6 fewer than the same period last year.
  • The Paper: From August 5th, a fuel surcharge of 30 yuan will be charged per passenger on routes less than 800 kilometers, and a fuel surcharge of 60 yuan will be charged per passenger on routes longer than 800 kilometers. This adjustment is the first increase in fuel surcharges since 2023, an increase of 10/30 yuan from last month, but still lower than the 60/120 yuan at the beginning of the year.
  • From July 1 to July 31, a total of 406 million passenger trips were made by railways across the country, with a daily average of 13.1 million trips, and a total of 324 million tons of national railway cargo shipments were completed, with a daily average of 10.45 million tons. Since the beginning of the Summer Games, the national railways have operated an average of 10,169 passenger trains per day, an increase of 14.2% over the same period in 2019.
  • China Coal Industry Association: At the end of June, the national coal enterprises had 69 million tons of coal in storage, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year, and the national thermal power plants had about 200 million tons of coal in storage, an increase of about 28 million tons year-on-year. The coal storage can be used for about 30 days, reaching the highest level in history . The coal storage in major ports across the country was 75.02 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 17.8%.
  • China Securities Journal: “Prefabricated food” is one of the new growth points planned to be cultivated and expanded in the “Work Plan for Steady Growth of Light Industry” issued by the three departments recently. In 2026, the scale of China’s prefabricated vegetable market will reach the trillion yuan level.
  • State Administration for Market Regulation: Recently, it officially approved the establishment of the National Intelligent Connected Automobile Industry Metrology and Testing Center. Intelligent networked vehicles are still in the early stages of industrialization. Key components such as millimeter-wave radars, image recognition cameras, lidar, etc., as well as advanced driver assistance systems for intelligent networked vehicles, such as adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring systems, etc. Accurate metrological testing is needed to ensure the accuracy and reliability of its working state.

China

  • Central Bank and State Administration of Foreign Exchange: Deepen financial international cooperation and high-level opening up of the financial industry. Simplify the procedures for foreign investors to invest in the Chinese market, and enrich the types of investable assets. Further facilitate foreign investors to increase their holdings of RMB assets, and promote the internationalization of RMB in an orderly manner.
  • Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: It is necessary to promote stable employment of people out of poverty and increase wage income. Ensure that the number of migrant workers who have been lifted out of poverty this year is stable at more than 30 million.
  • Medical Insurance Bureau: From January to June, the total income of basic medical insurance funds was 1,634.902 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%. Among them, the basic medical insurance fund income for employees was 1,104.651 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%. The income of basic medical insurance funds for urban and rural residents was 530.250 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.7%.
  • Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province: In the second half of the year, we will focus on bulk consumption, cultural tourism consumption, leading sales and county consumption. At present, Guangdong is promoting the relaxation of “licensing restrictions” in Guangzhou and Shenzhen; it supports Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major auto cities to implement car purchase subsidies, trade in old ones for new ones, and expand sales of new energy vehicles.

Company

  • OpenAI: Filed a trademark application for “GPT-5” with the USPTO. According to the trademark application information, GPT-5 provides an offline/online version of “computer software for artificially generating speech and text”; and an offline/online version of “computer software for natural language processing, generation, understanding and analysis”.
  • Apple: Due to the delay in mass production of OLED screens, the launch of some new models will be delayed until after October. OLED screens for the iPhone are mainly supplied by Samsung Electronics and LG Display. The company will use new technology to make the iPhone screen bezels narrower. It seems that LGD failed to meet its required performance in the pre-production stage.
  • Uber: In the second quarter, the total booking amount was US$33.601 billion, a year-on-year increase of 16%; revenue was US$9.230 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14%; net profit was US$394 million, and a net loss of US$2.601 billion in the same period last year; adjusted EBITDA was US$916 million, an increase of US$552 million year-on-year; free cash flow reached US$1.1 billion, a record high.
  • BYD: In July, the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 262,161, compared with 162,530 in the same period last year, a cumulative increase of 88.81% year-on-year. A total of 18,169 new energy passenger vehicles were sold overseas. The total installed capacity of new energy vehicle power batteries and energy storage batteries is about 12.406GWh, and the cumulative installed capacity in 2023 is about 72.655GWh.
  • Cyrus: In July, the sales volume was 12,039 units, a year-on-year decrease of 45.99%; the cumulative sales volume this year was 104,202 units, a year-on-year decrease of 29.57%. Among them, the sales of new energy vehicles were 6,934, a year-on-year decrease of 47.83%; the cumulative sales this year were 51,734, a year-on-year decrease of 12.19%.
  • Yahua Group: In 2020, Ya’an Lithium, a wholly-owned subsidiary, will sign a battery-grade lithium hydroxide supply agreement with Tesla. Both parties intend to revise and extend the original agreement on the basis of the original agreement. The contract performance period is from August 1, 2023 to December 31, 2030, and the total transaction volume is about 207,000 tons to 301,000 tons.
  • Oil giant ExxonMobil is in talks with Tesla, Ford Motor, Volkswagen and other automakers to supply them with lithium.

World

  • Japan Meteorological Agency: The average temperature in July was 1.91 degrees higher than the standard value shown in all years, the highest since 1898 when statistics were available. The previous highest record was 1.51 degrees higher in 1978, and this time broke the record after 44 years.