【Morning News】State Council Meeting Sets Tone for Stock and Property Markets, White House to Establish Task Force to Urgently Address Tariff Hike Crisis with China

Macro News

1. On April 18, Premier Li Qiang of the State Council presided over an executive meeting of the State Council, studying several measures to stabilize employment, stabilize the economy, and promote high-quality development. The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to stabilize the development of foreign trade and investment, increase support with tailored policies for each industry and enterprise, and support the reinvestment of foreign enterprises in China. It is also essential to promote service consumption in areas such as elderly care, childbirth, culture, and tourism, expand effective investment, and vigorously boost the enthusiasm of private investment. The meeting emphasized the need to continuously stabilize the stock market and promote the steady and healthy development of the real estate market.

2. On April 18, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian held a regular press conference. A reporter asked about the Trump administration's announcement of imposing "port fees" on Chinese-built ships. In response, Lin Jian stated that imposing "port fees" and additional tariffs on cargo handling equipment harms both sides. China urges the US to respect facts and multilateral rules and immediately cease its erroneous practices.

3. On April 17, the Office of the US Trade Representative announced final measures in the Section 301 investigation into China's maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors. The Ministry of Commerce responded by urging the US to respect facts and multilateral trade rules, adhere to the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop "shifting blame," and correct its wrong practices as soon as possible. China will closely monitor the US's actions and resolutely take necessary measures to safeguard its rights and interests.

4. Recently, the Ministry of Finance released the fiscal revenue and expenditure data for Q1 2025. In Q1, China's general public budget expenditure reached 7,281.5 billion yuan, up 4.2% YoY. Stamp duty revenue was 107.5 billion yuan, up 21.1% YoY, of which securities transaction stamp duty was 41.1 billion yuan, up 60.6% YoY.

5. At a recent special press conference held by the Ministry of Commerce, officials stated that the Ministry will strengthen classified guidance for pilot free trade zones, expand reform task authorizations for free trade zones in Guangdong, Tianjin, and Fujian, and assign them new pilot reform tasks.

6. The 2025 China Internet Entrepreneurs Symposium was held in Beijing. The meeting emphasized the need to carry forward the spirit of self-reliance and pioneering, demonstrate courage in leading technological competition, and strive for more breakthroughs in original, cutting-edge, and disruptive technologies.

Industry News

1. On April 19, the world's first humanoid robot half marathon kicked off in Beijing's Yizhuang. "Tiangong Ultra," organized by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, won the championship in the humanoid robot track, while "Songyan Power N2" secured second place, and "Xingzhe No.2" from Shanghai Zhuoyide Robot Co., Ltd. took third place.

2. Recently, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Work Plan for Accelerating the Comprehensive Pilot of Expanding the Opening of the Service Industry," which mentioned launching the "vehicle-road-cloud integration" application pilot, promoting the large-scale construction of related infrastructure, and the industrial development of intelligent connected vehicles. It also proposed expanding the opening of value-added telecommunications services and increasing the openness of the software and information service industry.

3. Recently, Zheng Shanjie, Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), chaired a special meeting on promoting the development of the low-altitude economy. The meeting emphasized the need to adopt a "national chessboard" approach, balance development and safety, government and market, and short-term and long-term considerations, plan and compile the "15th Five-Year Plan" for the low-altitude economy, comprehensively strengthen the safety bottom line, create a favorable development environment, and promote the safe and healthy development of the low-altitude economy according to local conditions.

4. Affected by US tariff policies, two well-known e-commerce platforms are expected to adjust prices in the US region. Recently, fashion e-commerce platform Shein and cross-border e-commerce platform Temu, owned by Pinduoduo, announced on their official websites that due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs, operating costs have increased. To maintain quality, price adjustments will be implemented starting April 25, 2025.

5. Recently, the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau held the 2025 regulatory work meeting for listed companies in its jurisdiction. The meeting required listed companies to actively take responsibility for stabilizing market value, the market, and confidence, treat market value management as a long-term strategic management behavior, and effectively enhance the company's investment value and development quality.

6. With the popularity of the B2B cross-border e-commerce platform DHgate overseas, the platform has seen significant growth in transaction volume across multiple countries and categories, with transaction volume growth exceeding 100% in 97 countries. The top five countries contributing to transaction volume are the US, the UK, Canada, France, and Australia.

7. Recently, the Shanghai Stock Exchange held a symposium with leading companies in the commercial aerospace industry, engaging in in-depth exchanges with 10 companies in the commercial rocket and satellite sectors, fully listening to their opinions and suggestions, and jointly exploring how the capital market can serve the high-quality development of commercial aerospace.

8. Huawei will hold the 2025 Huawei Smart Electric & Smart Charging Network Strategy and New Product Launch on April 22. It is reported that Huawei will release a megawatt-level ultra-fast charging product at the event. According to Huawei's previous preview, this megawatt-level charging product has a maximum charging current of 2,400 amperes, a maximum power of 1.5 megawatts, can supply 20 kWh of electricity per minute, and can fully charge an electric heavy-duty truck (with a battery capacity of about 300 kWh) in 15 minutes.

9. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has clearly stated that obesity is associated with at least 13 types of cancer risks. Some experts believe that obesity may replace smoking as the largest modifiable risk factor for cancer.

10. According to the latest data released by Statista, Tesla's sales in Europe plummeted across the board in Q1. Among them, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden saw declines of over 50%, while the Netherlands also experienced a near halving of sales.

Company News

1. The first humanoid robot half marathon kicked off in Beijing on April 19. Multiple online videos showed that the G1 humanoid robot from Unitree Technology fell during the race but stood up and continued. Unitree Technology issued a statement clarifying that it has not participated in any recent competitions and is mainly focused on preparing for a live-streamed humanoid robot combat event.

2. It is reported that the Tiangong 2.0 robot is about to be launched, achieving small-batch mass production and application. On April 19, Tang Jian, CTO of the Tiangong team and the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, stated in an interview with China News Service that as humanoid robots are widely adopted in the future, their prices will be comparable to an entry-level car.

3. Cambricon announced a Q1 net profit of 355 million yuan, turning a profit YoY.

4. Zhengdan Co., Ltd. announced a Q1 net profit of 389 million yuan, up 558.59% YoY.

5. Zhongji Innolight announced a Q1 net profit of 1.583 billion yuan, up 56.83% YoY.

6. Shijia Photonics announced a Q1 net profit of 93.19 million yuan, up 1,004% YoY.

7. Shuangyi Technology announced a Q1 net profit of 30.275 million yuan, up 902.12% YoY.

8. GDS Holdings announced plans to invest 3.537 billion yuan in the third phase of the Tianjin Baodi Cloud Computing Base project.

9. Silan Microelectronics announced a 2024 net profit of 220 million yuan, turning a profit YoY.

10. Robot announced a 2024 net loss of 194 million yuan, turning a profit into a loss YoY.

11. Shenghe Resources announced that MP Company's suspension of rare earth concentrate exports to China will not have a significant impact on the company's production and operations.

12. Meiya announced that the company and its actual controller and chairman, Zheng Jiping, have been investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for suspected violations of information disclosure regulations.

13. AVIC Electromechanical Systems announced plans to repurchase shares worth 300 million to 500 million yuan.

14. Shandong Huapeng announced that the company's stock may be subject to other risk warnings.

15. Wanfang Development announced that the company's stock trading may be subject to delisting risk warnings.

16. Changyao Holdings announced that starting April 22, the company will be subject to delisting risk warnings and other risk warnings.

17. *ST Rendong announced that the company's stock trading may be subject to additional delisting risk warnings.

18. Hongda New Materials announced that the company's stock may be subject to other risk warnings.

19. Weston announced that its actual controller, Mao Yuzhong, divided 20 million shares due to divorce, but the control rights remain unchanged.

Global Markets

1. US President Trump stated on April 17 that he is confident in reaching an agreement with China within a month. It is reported that the White House has been studying supply chain issues for some time and has discussed forming a working group to address them. The working group includes Vice President Vance, Treasury Secretary Besant, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, National Economic Council Director Hassett, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Milan, and US Trade Representative Greer.

2. According to CNBC, the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows that due to widespread dissatisfaction with President Trump's handling of tariffs, inflation, and government spending, his approval rating on economic issues has hit a new low in his presidency.

3. Sources revealed that the US is prepared to recognize Russia's control over Crimea as part of a broader peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. The report stated that this potential concession is the latest signal of President Trump's eagerness to reach a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Investment Opportunities Reference

1. Byte's Seed intelligent agent model UI-TARS-1.5 is open-sourced, and institutions believe that computing power infrastructure will continue to benefit.

According to information from the Doubao large model team's WeChat account, on April 17, ByteDance's Doubao large model team (Seed) released and open-sourced UI-TARS-1.5. This is an open-source multimodal intelligent agent based on a vision-language model, capable of efficiently executing various tasks in virtual worlds. Currently, UI-TARS-1.5 has achieved SOTA performance in seven typical GUI evaluation benchmarks and has demonstrated its long-term reasoning ability in games and interaction ability in open spaces for the first time.

The release of o3 & o4-mini, Doubao's 1.5·Deep Thinking multimodal model, the launch of Yuanbao on WeChat, the arrival of the AI reasoning era, the rise of AI applications, and the AIDC industry chain! Guojin Securities pointed out that in the current context, DeepSeek is catalyzing the accelerated iteration of global large models, and AI application scenarios such as edge devices, intelligent driving, and robots are expected to achieve higher growth rates. Meanwhile, computing power infrastructure will continue to benefit, especially the domestic computing power industry chain.

2. The Ministry of Commerce stated that the innovation momentum in the consumer market continued to be released in Q1, and the first-mover economy is full of vitality.

According to media reports, the Ministry of Commerce reported on China's consumer market in Q1. In Q1, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 12.5 trillion yuan, up 4.6% YoY, with the growth rate accelerating by 1.1 percentage points compared to the previous year. The innovation momentum continued to be released. Digital consumption developed rapidly, with online retail sales up 7.9% YoY, of which physical goods online retail sales grew 5.7%. Green consumption is highly favored, and the first-mover economy is full of vitality.

Shenwan Hongyuan stated that frequent pro-consumption policies and the first-mover economy are leading offline retail opportunities. From the home appliance trade-in policy, service consumption promotion policies, to the current series of first-mover economy and wholesale retail policies, the country's efforts to expand consumption are gaining momentum, and the coordinated implementation of various policies is expected to further stimulate consumer market vitality and increase residents' willingness to consume. At the same time, to further boost consumption vitality and promote the coordinated development of the industry chain, the first-mover economy, as an important strategic measure driven by policy, has received high attention.

3. The pilot work plan for the service industry has sparked positive market expectations, with both the volume and price of air ticket bookings rising during the Labour Day holiday.

According to the State Council Information Office website, a press conference will be held on April 21 by Ling Ji, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy International Trade Representative, along with officials from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Health Commission, and the People's Bank of China, to introduce the "Comprehensive Pilot Work Plan for Accelerating the Opening Up of the Service Industry." Additionally, the latest big data from TravelSky shows that as of April 17, domestic flight bookings for the Labour Day holiday exceeded 3.33 million, up 36% YoY, while international flight bookings surpassed 890,000, up 25% YoY. Data from VariFlight indicates that the average price of domestic air tickets (economy class, including taxes) during the Labour Day holiday was approximately 885.7 yuan, an 8.6% increase compared to 2019 and a 4.4% rise compared to 2024.

Following the expansion of the pilot program, the total number of cities participating in the comprehensive pilot for opening up the service industry will increase to 20, optimizing the related industries in the travel and tourism chain. The social services team at Founder Securities believes that the consumption in the travel chain is highly resilient and elastic, serving as a crucial driver for promoting domestic demand. With the Labour Day holiday approaching, it is expected to be a key window for policy announcements.

4. Industry Summit Held, Institutions Claim the Technology Could Become the Next Competition Point After Artificial Intelligence

The 2025 Fusion Reactor Vacuum Equipment and Device Industry Development Conference was held on April 18 in Hefei, Anhui. This is China's first conference centered on the entire industry chain of fusion vacuum systems.

Recently, progress in controlled nuclear fusion projects has accelerated. The domestic Spark-1 hybrid reactor project passed its environmental assessment, and first-tier projects are speeding up financing. The China National Nuclear Corporation announced that the new-generation artificial sun, "China's HL-3," achieved "double 100 million degrees." Internationally, the ITER organization signed a tritium plant procurement agreement with a South Korean domestic institution. Huayuan Securities stated that nuclear fusion is a critical battleground for the next energy revolution, and its approaching commercialization will likely intensify competition between China and the U.S., potentially accelerating capital expenditures in the industry chain. There are three approaches to achieving controlled fusion confinement: gravitational (gravity) confinement, inertial confinement, and magnetic confinement. Currently, as the rivalry between China and the U.S. heats up, nuclear fusion is expected to become the next competition point after artificial intelligence.