Zhitong Hong Kong Stocks Morning Brief | U.S. "Global Import Tariffs" increased from 10% to 15%; UBS turns bullish on "Chinese Lithium"

【Today’s Headlines】

Trump: “Global Import Tariffs” Increased from 10% to 15%

On the 21st, U.S. President Trump posted on social media that he announced the previous day that the “global import tariffs” on goods imported into the U.S. will be raised from 10% to 15%, “effective immediately.”

Trump stated that, based on a review of the Supreme Court’s ruling, “tariffs on multiple countries worldwide” will be immediately increased from 10% to 15%. Over the coming months, the U.S. government will determine and announce new “legitimate tariffs.”

【Market Outlook】

COMEX Gold Futures for the Month Up 2.65% to $5,130.0 per Ounce

Last night, U.S. stocks: Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 230.81 points to close at 49,625.97, up 0.47%; S&P 500 increased 47.62 points to 6,909.51, up 0.69%; Nasdaq Composite gained 203.34 points to 22,886.07, up 0.9%. Last week, the Dow gained 0.25%, Nasdaq rose 1.51%, and S&P increased 1.07%.

Major tech stocks rose across the board, with Alphabet-A up over 4%, Netflix and Amazon up over 2%. Optical communications and mining stocks also rose, with Corning up over 7%, Coherent up over 6%, Lumentum, Pan American Silver, Hecla Mining, and Royal Gold up over 5%. Popular Chinese concept stocks had mixed results; Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index down 0.05%. TSMC rose 2.82%, Pinduoduo up 2.93%, Alibaba up 0.12%. Hang Seng Index ADRs increased, roughly calculated, closing at 26,636.73 points, up 223.38 points or 0.85% from Hong Kong market close.

COMEX gold futures for the current month rose $132.60, a 2.65% increase, to $5,130.0 per ounce. COMEX silver futures for the month increased $6.94, an 8.93% rise, to $84.57 per ounce.

【Hot Topics Preview】

U.S. Q4 GDP Grows Only 1.4%, Economists Warn Recession Risks Are Higher Than Expected

This Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released new data showing that by the end of 2025, the U.S. economy will sharply cool, with the initial quarterly annualized GDP growth rate dropping to 1.4%. This is mainly due to tariffs policies and weeks-long government shutdowns weakening previous growth momentum. According to the latest data, the U.S. economy grew 2.2% overall last year, below the 2.8% of the previous year. Meanwhile, despite the impact of Trump’s tariffs, U.S. imports increased last year, and the trade deficit continued to expand.

India Eager to “Import” Power Equipment from China

According to CCTV Finance, citing two Indian government officials, due to worsening supply shortages and project delays, India has begun relaxing restrictions on purchasing Chinese equipment, allowing state-owned enterprises to procure power transmission equipment from China without government approval. Additionally, India is considering implementing similar, time-limited exemptions for key equipment in the coal industry.

This is the first relaxation of such restrictions in five years, allowing Chinese companies to enter India’s government procurement market valued at up to $700-750 billion. One official said the exemption is for “national interest,” as blocking Chinese imports would harm India’s manufacturing capacity. A high-level officials’ group has approved the exemption measures, expected to be announced soon. It is also reported that over the next three years, India’s transmission projects will face about a 40% shortfall in transformers and reactors.

China Telecom Urgently Suspends Optical Cable Centralized Procurement

In February 2026, China Telecom’s Guangdong branch announced the suspension of two projects: the 2026 optical cable emergency demand framework procurement and outdoor optical cable emergency demand framework procurement, with restart dates to be announced later. These two projects are emergency procurement demands initiated earlier this year, covering 21 types of optical cables and 103 specifications, with clear maximum bid limits. The actual production costs of the cables have far exceeded the bidding limits. The severe cost and limit mismatch has left cable manufacturers unprofitable, leading to low bidding willingness and difficulty advancing the procurement projects, making suspension a necessary choice.

New Round of Equipment Upgrades with Lower Thresholds and Broader Scope Has Started

This year, China continues to promote large-scale equipment upgrades across multiple sectors. These projects aim to boost holiday consumption and support social livelihoods more effectively. Equipment upgrades for offline commercial facilities have been included in the policy for the first time this year. During this Spring Festival, commercial complexes in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and other regions completed upgrades and first met consumers. Old electronic screens in malls were replaced with new LED displays, restrooms and elevators were renovated for accessibility, and ventilation, lighting, and power distribution equipment were renewed. Currently, a new round of equipment upgrades for 2026 has been launched in 31 provinces and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, involving about 20 fields including industry, electronic information, energy saving, and carbon reduction. The policies will optimize application conditions and review processes, further lowering investment thresholds for equipment upgrade projects, increasing support for small and medium-sized enterprises, and expanding the scope of benefits.

SK Hynix and Goldman Sachs Hold Conference Call: All Customer Demands Cannot Be Met, Storage Prices to Continue Rising This Year

SK Hynix issued a strong signal during a Goldman Sachs conference call: the storage industry has fully entered a seller’s market. Driven by real AI demand and limited cleanroom space, storage prices will continue to rise this year. The company revealed that current DRAM and NAND inventories are only about four weeks’ worth, and no customer can fully meet demand. As 2026 HBM capacity runs out, the severe shortage of standard DRAM is significantly increasing suppliers’ bargaining power, with the industry chain initiating long-term contract negotiations to lock in future supplies. This impacts Hong Kong-listed memory chip companies such as GigaDevice (03986) and Lianchuang Technology (06809).

UBS Bullish on “Chinese Lithium,” Raises Lithium Price Forecasts

In early February and during the Spring Festival holiday, top global investment research firms UBS repeatedly released reports, clearly optimistic about “Chinese lithium,” significantly raising price forecasts for spodumene and lithium carbonate, and stating that the market has entered the third supercycle of lithium prices. The reports point out that the “triple balance” of electric vehicles is gradually taking shape, and global energy storage demand is exploding, driving continuous growth in lithium demand. They also highlight Chinese lithium companies Tianqi Lithium, Ganfeng Lithium, and China Salt Lake, raising expectations for these firms. However, industry insiders say UBS’s assessment of supply release capacity is conservative, and its expectations for energy storage demand may be overly optimistic (high lithium prices, pressure on storage costs).

2026 Spring Festival Box Office Surpasses 5.1 Billion Yuan

According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 7 p.m. on February 22, the total box office for the 2026 Spring Festival holiday exceeded 5.1 billion yuan.

Zhipu (02513) Releases GLM-5 Technical Report, Full Technical Details Publicly Disclosed

Zhipu states that GLM-5 is a next-generation foundational model aimed at shifting programming paradigms from “VibeCoding” to “AgenticEngineering.” Building on the intelligence, reasoning, and programming capabilities of its predecessor GLM-4.5, GLM-5 uses sparse attention to greatly reduce inference costs while maintaining long context capabilities. To better align the model with various tasks, it has built a new asynchronous reinforcement learning infrastructure, decoupling generation from training to significantly improve post-training iteration efficiency. Additionally, a new asynchronous agent reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to further enhance reinforcement learning effects, enabling the model to learn more effectively from complex, long-range interactions. Thanks to these innovations, GLM-5 has achieved state-of-the-art performance on mainstream open benchmarks. Most importantly, GLM-5 demonstrates unprecedented capabilities in real-world programming tasks, surpassing all previous open-source baselines in end-to-end software engineering challenges.

HuiJu Technology (01729) Completes Placement of 108 Million Shares, Raises Approximately HKD 1.635 Billion

HuiJu Technology announced that all conditions of the placement agreement have been satisfied, and the placement was completed on February 20, 2026, according to the terms of the agreement. A total of 108 million shares were successfully placed to no fewer than six placees at a price of HKD 15.22 per share, representing about 5.45% of the company’s existing issued share capital before the placement and about 5.16% after the placement.

【Stock Highlights】

CIMC Enric (03899): Overseas Expansion Moving Toward Implementation

Recently, CIMC Enric announced plans to cooperate with multiple parties on the Indonesia Qingshan project. Morgan Stanley believes that CIMC Enric’s announcement of its first overseas coke oven gas project in Indonesia is significant. The bank estimates that if the project reaches maximum capacity, it could contribute about 70 million RMB in profit, roughly 6% of its projected net profit for FY2025. This progress is expected to further boost market sentiment, as the project reflects the company’s overseas expansion from vision to actual execution.

Morgan Stanley also notes that this is CIMC Enric’s fifth coke oven gas project, further consolidating its expertise in this field. The development alleviates investor concerns about slowing profit growth. Since the company’s three new businesses are project-based, each successful project will provide stable income, enhancing long-term growth visibility. The bank remains positive about CIMC Enric’s Indonesia project, expecting it to bring significant financial and strategic benefits.