Yang Delong: Yushu Technology is about to go public; the robotics sector may "dance" again

Ask AI · What are the reasons behind the robotics sector’s rise against the trend amid the situation in the Middle East?

Internet News Information Service License No.: 51120180008

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■ Yang Delong

Due to the escalation of conflicts in the Middle East, global stock markets have recently seen significant declines. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the choke point for global oil transportation, has been blocked for some time. As a result, international oil prices have surged and at one point reached 120 US dollars per barrel. Higher oil prices can have a major impact on the global economy, and global prices may also rise. Therefore, many investors are concerned about whether the global economy could fall into stagflation. The rise in oil prices pushes up inflation expectations, which also leads to repeated delays in the timing of Federal Reserve rate cuts. Some even expect that the Federal Reserve may not cut rates this year, and could even raise rates.

If this war does not last long—if the Strait of Hormuz can resume navigation within the next two or three weeks—then the period during which oil prices remain at high levels would be relatively short, and the impact on the global economy would also be relatively smaller, which would give the stock market a chance to rebound. But if the war takes a turn for the worse, then the impact of the war on the prices of global assets such as oil and gold will be more persistent.

In recent days, not only have stock markets fallen sharply, but gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, has also declined significantly. Fundamentally, on the one hand, international gold prices have risen sharply over the past few years, accumulating a large amount of profit-taking positions; therefore, some funds have seized the opportunity to sell off and cash out in large volumes. On the other hand, when some institutions face liquidity crises, they may choose to sell gold to ease funding pressure. As a result, international gold prices have seen large-scale fluctuations recently. Of course, in the long run, the logic behind the rise in international gold prices has not changed. The U.S. government’s debt is piling up, the dollar continues to be issued, and de-dollarization is a long-term trend—these factors all support the long-term strength of international gold prices. Therefore, it is recommended that investors, from a medium- to long-term perspective, allocate to gold to hedge risks, avoid short-term trading, prevent chasing rallies and then panic-selling, and avoid becoming the target of “shaving.”

From the perspective of asset allocation, adjustments in the current capital markets are unavoidable. Escalation of the Middle East conflict increases uncertainty in the market. Investors can reduce positions to mitigate risk, and then enter again at the right time after the geopolitical conflict ends. As of now, this strategy remains effective. Faced with many uncertainty factors that are difficult to predict, we can only respond by reducing the allocation to equity assets and increasing the allocation to cash and cash equivalents. When the conflict is nearing its end, it may be possible to selectively buy some high-quality stocks or high-quality funds that were sold off by mistake at lower prices, in order to capture the opportunity for the next round of market rebound. Although this Middle East conflict has had a significant impact on the market’s short-term direction, it will not change the current pattern of a slow bull market and a long bull market in China’s A-share market.

At present, concerns in the market about a bubble in US AI technology stocks are intensifying. Many people worry that, after US tech stocks have risen for more than a decade, they now show clear bubble-like characteristics and could experience a sharp drop if AI applications fail to meet expectations. If a bubble in US AI technology stocks were to burst, it could affect the trend of AI-related technology stocks in China’s A-share market. For example, companies in the Nvidia industrial chain, the Tesla industrial chain, and the Google industrial chain, among others, may face significant pressure in the short term. But we believe that the widespread adoption of AI is the main feature of the fourth technological revolution. Since the end of 2022, generative AI has become one of the most important industrial changes in the world, and it may bring a great deal of new productive capacity. Recently, Nvidia’s founder Jensen Huang released the latest Nvidia products, which also shows us how rapidly AI development is evolving. Therefore, the overall trend of US tech stocks is still mainly characterized by intensified volatility, but it does not necessarily mean a bubble will burst soon.

This Middle East conflict has also led to a major adjustment in the US stock market, but this adjustment has not yet evolved into a burst of the technology-stock bubble. Therefore, its impact on China’s A-share market is relatively limited. Of course, at present, both China’s A-share market and the US market’s technology stocks belong to sectors with relatively high elasticity. The Middle East conflict has reduced investors’ risk appetite and increased safe-haven sentiment. Therefore, it is understandable that, under profit-taking pressure, technology stocks could see big declines and even panic selling. We need to analyze the long-term development patterns of these technology stocks from the perspective of the fourth technological revolution.

Recently, driven by the positive news that Unitree Technology is about to go public, the humanoid robotics sector—especially listed companies that support Unitree Technology—has seen a sharp rise in stock prices. The listing of Unitree Robotics is expected to bring a wave of opportunities for the humanoid robotics sector. In addition, in the near term, Tesla may release the new Optimus V3 humanoid robot. Musk said that, compared with V1 and V2, V3 will have major improvements and changes in performance, which could also ignite investors’ enthusiasm for investing in the humanoid robotics sector.

Affected by the international situation, the non-ferrous metals sector, which had risen sharply earlier, has triggered capital sell-offs, and in the short term it is still in a period of adjustment. However, from a medium- to long-term perspective, the underlying logic for long-term investment in non-ferrous metals has not fundamentally changed. In the AI era, demand for non-ferrous metals will not decline; it will increase instead. In particular, metals related to building AI data centers will see high demand. Going forward, as market demand recovers, shares of non-ferrous metals still have the opportunity to stabilize and rebound.

“Technology + resources” are the two major investment themes of this year, and judging by the current situation, this strategy remains effective.

Editor-in-charge | Long Xiao

Reviewed by | Wang Wei