[Focus Review] The Shanghai Composite Index surged then fell back, losing the six-month moving average; energy storage concepts remain hot, while computing power leasing concepts plummeted in the afternoon.

Ask AI · How will the Middle East situation trigger a sustained hot run in the energy storage sector?

Caixin News, March 20: Today, 28 stocks hit the daily limit up, 23 hit the limit-up but then broke it, and the board-filling rate was 55%. Huadian Liaoning Energy and Shenhua Huadian A both logged five consecutive limit-ups. Dashengda and Shaoneng Co. notched three consecutive limit-ups. Huadian Energy hit six limit-ups in nine days. Sunshine Power Supply and Guosheng Technology achieved four limit-ups in eight days. The market saw a rally followed by a pullback throughout the day. The SSE Composite Index traded in a volatile range and failed to hold the 6-month moving average, slipping below the 4,000-point round-number level. The ChiNext Index refreshed a new intra-year high during the session, then quickly retreated. The two lines of growth versus lagging stocks showed clear divergence. Mid- and small-cap stocks generally fell, and the micro-cap stock index dropped more than 3%. Turnover across the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets totaled 2.29 trillion yuan, up 175.9 billion yuan from the prior trading day. On the trading screen, more than 4,700 stocks across the whole market fell for two consecutive days. By sector, photovoltaic, energy storage, power, and lithium battery led the gains; while compute leasing, oil & gas, and chemical sectors led the declines. As of the close, the SSE Composite Index fell 1.24%, the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.25%, and the ChiNext Index rose 1.3%.

Momentum and Consecutive-Limit-Up Stock Analysis

The rate at which consecutive-limit-up stocks advanced rose back to 50%. Excluding Huadian Liaoning Energy, which achieved 4-to-5 progress with a “long-leg” move, the other consecutive-limit-up stocks all advanced in the form of hollow boards. With yesterday’s international crude oil prices rising and then pulling back, the chemicals and oil & gas sectors that saw a partial rebound yesterday encountered broad-based selling today. Meanwhile, the compute leasing concept, which had been surging hot earlier, became a severe area for selling pressure. In the afternoon, Yitian Intelligent and Xiechuang Data touched the 20% daily limit down. Trend-following popular stocks such as Dongfang Guoxin and Hongjing Technology also ranked among the biggest decliners. In the early session, the popular stock in optical modules, Yuanzhe Technology, briefly touched the 20% daily limit up and then outperformed Cangwu, becoming the 8th thousand-yuan stock in A-shares history. Battery leader CATL’s share price neared its historical high, prompting further capital to cluster into heavyweight stocks along the compute-hardware and new energy tracks, which in turn drained liquidity from smaller theme stocks; in the afternoon, the micro-cap stock index plunged by more than 3%. This extremely polarized “two-tier”行情 reflects that the market has already shown some liquidity stress, which may further fuel the spread of short-term panic sentiment.

Main Line Hot Topics

As the conflict in the Middle East escalated, energy production facilities such as natural gas became targets of attacks by multiple parties. Yesterday, ICE UK natural gas futures rose 121.5% from the low point in 2026. TTF Dutch natural gas futures rose 120.8%. Rising upstream gas prices reinforced expectations of transmission into power prices. The energy storage industry chain has continued to stand on the wind at the forefront. The inverters segment saw a particularly hot rally: Sungeng Electric and First Sail New Energy hit the daily limit up, while Jinlang Technology, Yukun Technology, and Deye shares led on gains. In addition, benefiting from “double旺” production scheduling for energy storage battery demand, the battery industry chain also saw strong follow-through gains. Shida Shenghua, Puraitai, and Ganfeng Lithium touched the daily limit up, while Huabao New Energy and Penghui Energy both surged more than 10%. Aside from overseas anxiety about energy security, strong installation demand for distributed energy storage projects, and China’s AIDC’s extreme requirements for power-supply stability, mean that energy-storage supporting systems are expected to be upgraded into a necessity. However, at present, the new energy track led by energy storage remains highly driven by sentiment tied to the Middle East situation, and short-term funds have over-concentrated into the new energy track; the risk of short-term volatility still cannot be ignored.

Caixin News reporter learned from market sources that the SpaceX team under Elon Musk previously purchased equipment from a domestic leading heterojunction device company, and delivery is expected in the first week of May. The photovoltaic industry chain surged broadly in the afternoon, but kept oscillating and then fell back over the course of the day. After Jiejia Weichuang and Jun Daye touched the daily limit up, their gains narrowed significantly. Multiple photovoltaic equipment stocks, including Mweiwei Shares, Laplace, and Otiev, also all closed with long upper-wick candlestick patterns. In fact, in late January of this year, along with expectations of SpaceX conducting plant audits, a round of notable upside rallies was triggered in related sub-leaders such as heterojunction, perovskite-tandem battery cells, and upstream processing equipment, including CPI films. But with today’s renewed batch explosion, the pressure from lock-up orders and profit-taking on top of the price still cannot be digested quickly in the short term. Moreover, the traditional commercial spaceflight direction had already completed some repair actions earlier; today, Shunhao Shares and Aerospace Development—popular stocks from earlier phases—were again hit hard. Space photovoltaics still struggles to break away from the overall concept trend in commercial aerospace to form an independent行情.

Recently, Datang Ningxia Branch plans to develop two phases of a big-data compute power green electricity industrial park in Zhongwei, Ningxia, with a total planned scale of 4.6 million kilowatts and total investment of nearly 20 billion yuan. This project will become the largest “compute-power and power-generation coordination” green electricity supply project in China at present. The green power industry chain continued its prior strength: Huadian Liaoning Energy, Shaoneng Shares, and Huadian Energy all advanced with consecutive limit-ups. Zhouchou Group once touched the 20% daily limit up, while Guangdong Electric A and GCL Energy Science & Technology once surged in the session and came close to the limit up. According to estimates by Huachuang Securities, for IDC, green power electricity costs less than grid electricity. Power costs account for 56.7% of a data center’s operating costs. Taking a certain IDC project as an example: direct purchase of grid electricity costs 0.25 yuan per kWh, while wind/solar/storage direct connection costs 0.19 yuan. Power expenditures can be reduced by 24%. Therefore, integration between domestic data centers and regional green power projects remains a clear trend. However, for prior popular compute-power-and-power coordination names such as Kaijin Kai Neng, short-term pressure remains heavy. In addition, the power sector has recently kept spreading down toward low-level pure green power stocks; after internal switching between high and low within the sector continues in the near term, further differentiation may still occur next week.

At the 2026 OFC conference, Lumentum, a leader in the optical communications industry, expects that by the end of fiscal year 2026, EML production capacity will increase by more than 50% year over year from 2025. Overnight, U.S. stocks optical communications concept stocks did not change their strength. Tower Semiconductor surged nearly 17%, while Lumentum and Applied Optoelectronics both rose more than 10%. The CPO concept saw another round of broad-based intraday surges in the morning. In the optical chip concept, Yunnan Germanium Co. Ltd. quickly locked the daily limit up early, and Yuanjie Technology briefly touched the 20% daily limit up. Total market value nearly approached 100 billion yuan. Changguang Huaxin and New Ease Technology refreshed their historical highs. But in the afternoon, a flash breakdown lower in the compute leasing concept still dragged down compute hardware stocks. Currently, the strong performance on the hardware side is still based on strong upstream demand for optical components driven by overseas data center construction. However, in the short term, the走势 of U.S. tech stocks is still, to some extent, constrained by the impact of the Middle East conflict. Also, within the sector, the core large-cap stocks are still near historical high levels. In the short run, the risk may still be higher than the returns.

Outlook for the Next Phase

Today’s market displayed extreme fragmentation throughout the day. Active capital further narrowed its focus, concentrating into heavyweight stocks in the new energy and compute hardware directions, causing the ChiNext Index to rise by more than 3% at one point during the session. Meanwhile, the continuous divergence between the yellow and white lines on the intraday chart, and the expansion of losses in small-cap theme stocks in the afternoon, made the micro-cap stock index surge in volume and fall by more than 3%, breaking below the 60-day moving average. With the SSE Composite Index breaking below the 6-month moving average for the first time since April 7 last year, the full-year line has also turned downward. As the number of stocks hitting the limit-down rose into double digits, and as the number of bearish candles for recent indices with declines of more than 5% kept increasing, it shows that panic selling in today’s market has been concentrated and released. However, the SSE Composite has already been trading below the lower Bollinger Band on the daily chart for two consecutive days, which may trigger a short-term technical rebound. But on the weekly chart, the SSE Composite Index is still in the early stage of a bearish death cross as indicated by MACD and KDJ moving downward. To quickly reverse the poor momentum, it still needs to be watched when the SSE Composite can move back upward and reclaim the 5-week moving average.

Today’s Limit-Up Analysis Chart

(Caixin News, Jin Haoming)