Highlights from Brokerage Morning Meetings: The Rare Earth Sector Currently Offers Both Offensive and Defensive Strategies, Suggesting Active Attention.

Published: Apr 16, 2025 09:45

The market bottomed out yesterday, with the three major indices showing mixed changes. The total trading volume of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the day was 1.08 trillion yuan, a decrease of 200.3 billion yuan compared to the previous trading day. In terms of sectors, beauty care, e-commerce, food, and banking led the gains, while duty-free, ports, Hainan, and rail transit sectors led the declines. As of yesterday's close, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.15%, the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.27%, and the ChiNext Index fell 0.13%.

At today's brokerage morning meetings, China Securities suggested that the rare earth sector is both offensive and defensive, recommending active attention; Huatai Securities stated that the AI healthcare industry trend is accelerating; CICC believes that the total telecom capital expenditure in 2025 will be under pressure, with attention on structural growth opportunities such as computing power and 5G-A.

China Securities: The Rare Earth Sector Is Both Offensive and Defensive, Recommend Active Attention

China Securities stated that recently, two ministries issued an announcement on export control measures for seven types of medium-heavy rare earth-related items, including samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. Driven by both export control policies and the release of end-use demand, downstream performance has been strong, with increased procurement activity pushing prices slightly higher. Trump's aggressive tariff policies, combined with China's control of about 70% of global rare earth mines, about 90% of rare earth smelting and separation, and about 90% of rare earth magnet capacity, give China a complete industry chain and strong self-control capabilities. The introduction of dual controls on production and exports provides a strong countermeasure to US tariff policies. On the demand side, rare earth magnets are essential materials for high-performance, energy-efficient motors. A single humanoid robot uses over 2kg of rare earth permanent magnets, comparable to the amount used in a NEV. Musk predicts that the demand for humanoid robots will reach the level of 10 billion units in the future, far exceeding the demand for NEVs, indicating a very broad future space. The rare earth sector is both offensive and defensive, and active attention is recommended.

Huatai Securities: The AI Healthcare Industry Trend Is Accelerating

Huatai Securities stated that on April 10, the US FDA announced a series of methods to reduce, improve, or replace animal testing requirements in the R&D of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs, including AI-based toxicity calculation models and cell line and organoid toxicity tests conducted in laboratory environments. A pilot project is planned to launch in 2025, allowing some pharmaceutical companies to completely skip animal experiments under FDA supervision, with a full policy update expected to be completed by 2026. This FDA policy will further promote the coverage of AI in new drug development, accelerating from chemical synthesis to preclinical and clinical trial biological stages, driving innovative drug companies to increase investment in AI drug discovery platforms. It is reiterated that 2025 will see a leap in "AI + healthcare," and related investment opportunities should be valued.

CICC: Total Telecom Capital Expenditure in 2025 Under Pressure, Focus on Structural Growth Opportunities Such as Computing Power and 5G-A

CICC stated that the 2024 financial reports of the three major telecom operators show that their total capital expenditure for 2024 was 318.9 billion yuan, down 9.7% YoY, a decline higher than the 4.5% guidance at the beginning of 2024. Looking ahead to 2025, the total capital expenditure guidance for the three operators is down 9.1% YoY to 288.9 billion yuan, with the investment scale continuing to narrow. Structurally, the investment focus of operators is further tilting towards computing power networks, with China Mobile/Telecom/Unicom guiding computing power investments up 0.5%/22%/28% YoY, while traditional mobile & fixed network construction has entered a period of high-quality and steady development focusing on investment efficiency. Future upgrades in 5G-A, 400G OTN, and 50G PON are expected to boost incremental investment in wireless/wired networks.

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