Wall Street Insights Breakfast FM-Radio | March 20, 2026

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Huajian Morning Voice

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Market Overview

U.S. stocks continued overnight weakness in early trading, but favorable comments from Israel regarding the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. loosening oil supply policy triggered a drop in oil prices. U.S. stocks recovered most of their intraday decline in the final hour before closing. The market awaits Friday’s “Triple Witching Day”.

Dow Jones fell 0.44%, Nasdaq fell 0.28%. The Russell small-cap index outperformed, up 0.65%, mainly triggered by large-scale short covering. Tesla fell over 3%, leading the decline among the Magnificent 7 tech stocks. Most chip stocks rose, but Nvidia fell over 1%, Micron dropped about 3.7% after earnings.

Bonds stabilized, U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell 1.7bps, 2-year basically flat at 3.784%.

Dollar fell 0.7%. ECB and BOE synchronously released hawkish signals, Euro soared 1.2%, Pound up 1.3%, Yen up over 1.3%. Bitcoin fell 1.1%, rebounded after dropping below $70,000 intraday; Ethereum fell 2%.

Despite dollar weakness, metals faced intense selling under central bank hawkish expectations. Gold plunged 6% at one point to near $4500, silver intraday plummeted 12%, later narrowing losses, NY closing down 3.3%, London aluminum hit largest drop since 2018. WTI crude once broke above $100 intraday, then plunged over 8% from day’s high. Brent fell over 3%.

In Asia, the three major A-share indices all fell over 1%, CPO strengthened countertrend, nonferrous metals plummeted, Hang Seng dropped by 2% with increased volume, Tencent down nearly 7%, Xiaomi up over 3%.

Major News

China

Ministry of Commerce: Continue to utilize China-U.S. trade consultation mechanism to strengthen dialogue and communication.

PBOC: Firmly maintain stable operation of stock, bond, forex and other financial markets.

Alibaba Q4 revenue up 2% YoY, AI-related income has triple-digit growth for ten consecutive quarters; Earnings call: In the next five years, cloud and AI annual revenue will exceed $100 billion, MaaS will be Alibaba Cloud’s largest revenue product.

Xiaomi Spring Launch: New SU7 starts at 219,900 yuan, entire series equipped with lidar, first ‘lobster’ phone officially enters trial testing. Lei Jun announces Xiaomi’s globally discussed “mysterious model”, Xiaomi “AI roadmap” becomes clearer.

Overseas

Bencenth: Has allowed Iranian oil to continue flowing out of the Gulf region, may lift sanctions on offshore Iranian oil. Iran states if infrastructure is attacked again, will not restrain itself; hit a U.S. F-35 fighter, U.S. may capture islands to force Iran to open Hormuz. Israel PM says will pause air strikes on Iranian energy facilities, Qatar says Iranian attacks destroyed 17% LNG capacity. Report: Iran plans to charge “safe passage fee” for ships transiting Hormuz, Brent oil falls. Report: U.S. officials say White House not considering oil/gas export ban currently.

Bank of Japan holds rates steady as expected, but says “must be wary of oil price hikes’ impact on inflation”! BOJ Governor: Soaring oil prices make policy judgment difficult, will continue raising rates if economic outlook is realized.

ECB holds rates for the sixth time, Middle East conflict makes Eurozone outlook highly uncertain. Lagarde warns Iran conflict has substantial inflation impact, urges governments not to “overdo” measures on energy crisis.

Bank of England keeps rates unchanged, deletes “rate cut” language, “ready to act” on inflation, government bond yields soar!

U.S. initial jobless claims unexpectedly dropped to 205,000 last week, setting a new low for the year.

From rate cuts to rate hikes! Bond market expectations for Fed policy path undergo historic turnaround.

Waller’s Fed chair nomination faces complexity! Report: Trump suggests U.S. DOJ should continue investigating Powell. Senator Warren questions Waller over Epstein files mentioning him, demands response.

Jensen Huang: AI leaders should avoid spreading panic, optimistic Anthropic revenue to break $1 trillion by 2030.

Market Close

US/EU Stocks: S&P 500 down 0.27% at 6606.49 points. Dow down 0.44% at 46021.43. Nasdaq down 0.28% at 22090.69. Europe STOXX 600 index down 2.39% at 583.64.

A-shares: Shanghai Composite at 4006.55, down 1.39%. Shenzhen Component at 13901.57, down 2.02%. ChiNext Index at 3309.10, down 1.11%.

Bonds: US 10-year benchmark Treasury yield down 1.57bps to 4.2493%. US 2-year yield up 1.74bps to 3.7924%.

Commodities: WTI April crude futures down 0.18% at $96.14/barrel. Brent May crude up 1.18% at $108.65/barrel. Spot gold down 3.42% at $4653.01/oz. Spot silver down 3.33% at $72.85/oz.

News Details

Global Hotspot

China

Ministry of Commerce: Continue to utilize China-U.S. trade consultation mechanism to strengthen dialogue and communication. Both sides agreed to study establishing and expanding mechanisms for economic and trade cooperation, continue to play a good role in the China-U.S. trade consultation mechanism, strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand pragmatic cooperation, and drive stable and positive bilateral economic and trade relations.

People’s Bank of China: Firmly maintain stable operation of stocks, bonds, forex and other financial markets. On March 18th, the PBOC held an expanded meeting, clarifying to continue implementing moderately loose monetary policy, comprehensively use tools like RRR cuts and bond purchase/sales to keep liquidity ample, lead financing costs at low levels. Moreover, the meeting first proposed studying a liquidity support mechanism for non-bank institutions, fully safeguarding stable operation of the economy and financial markets.

Alibaba Q4 revenue up 2% YoY, AI-related income has triple-digit growth for ten consecutive quarters; Earnings call: Cloud and AI annual revenue will exceed $100 billion in next five years, MaaS will be Alibaba Cloud’s largest revenue product

Most notable incremental growth this time comes from cloud and AI. Alibaba Cloud’s current quarter income up 36% YoY to 43.284 billion yuan, AI product revenue has triple-digit YoY growth for ten consecutive quarters. Instant retail investment dragged group operating profit down 74% YoY to 10.645 billion, non-GAAP net profit down 67% YoY to 16.71 billion, below market expectation of 31.6 billion.
Pingtouge has delivered over 470,000 AI chips for real business deployment, annualized revenue at 10 billion level, IPO possible. Instant retail goal: turnover breaks 1 trillion yuan in 2028 fiscal year, overall profitability in 2029 fiscal year.

Alibaba, Baidu both raise prices, China cloud market enters "price hike cycle"? Driven by exploding AI demand and rising hardware costs, China’s cloud service price hikes have spread from small/mid firms to leading players. Morgan Stanley believes: China cloud infrastructure service officially moves from price cuts to hikes, leading cloud providers with pricing power will benefit first, margin recovery expectations rise.

Xiaomi Spring Launch: New SU7 starts at 219,900 yuan, entire lineup equipped with lidar, first ‘lobster’ phone officially enters testing. The new generation SU7 all comes standard with lidar, 700TOPS assisted driving compute, Xiaomi HAD end-to-end assisted driving system, pre-sale range from 229,900 to 309,900 yuan. Lei Jun stressed: In the next three years, Xiaomi plans to invest over 60 billion yuan in AI to seize leadership in this frontier.

Lei Jun officially announces globally discussed “mysterious model”, Xiaomi “AI roadmap” gradually clarified. The “mysterious model” hotly discussed online is finally claimed by Xiaomi! Xiaomi heavily launched trillion-parameter large model MiMo-V2-Pro, ranked eighth globally in performance with significant cost edge. Goldman Sachs issued a report strongly endorsing, says Xiaomi has officially entered AI results realization phase, solidifies position as “physical AI leader”. Despite short-term profit pressures due to 10-billion-level R&D, ecosystem landing drives long-term value rebranding; Goldman maintains “buy” rating with target of HK$41.

Overseas

Bencenth: Has allowed Iranian oil to continue flowing out of Gulf, may lift sanctions on offshore Iranian oil. On the 19th, Bencenth said U.S. did not attack Iran’s energy infrastructure, has allowed Iranian oil to continue flowing from the Gulf region, U.S. may lift sanctions on offshore Iranian oil in coming days. Furthermore, U.S. may release strategic oil reserve again to curb oil prices.

Iran says if infrastructure attacked again will not restrain itself, hit a U.S. F-35, U.S. may capture islands to force Iran open Hormuz. Iran says 64th wave of attacks targeted Israeli Haifa refineries and military gathering points, missiles precisely struck U.S. 5th Fleet; response to attacks on Iran’s infrastructure so far uses “only a small part of capability”. Report: 2,200-strong U.S. Marine Corps expeditionary unit heads to the Middle East, possibly to capture Khark Island and islands near Hormuz. U.S. says a F-35 executing mission over Iran made an emergency landing. Israel launched air strikes for the first time on Iran’s Caspian port city Bandar Anzali, destroyed several navy vessels. Israeli PM says military action against Iran will last as long as necessary, conflict will end much faster than people expect. IDF chief says military action against Iran “not even half done”. U.S. Defense Secretary says request to White House for more than $200 billion funding for Iran operations.

Responding to Trump, Israeli PM says will suspend air strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, Qatar says Iran attacks destroyed 17% LNG capacity. After Netanyahu’s speech, intraday Brent oil surged over 10% then fell over 3%. Trump said on Wednesday he was unaware of Israeli attack on Iranian gas fields, Qatar definitely not involved, Thursday he said he won’t deploy troops anywhere, U.S. will do whatever it takes to keep oil prices stable. Qatar Energy CEO says over next 3-5 years will lose 12.8 million tons per year of LNG capacity, may have to declare force majeure on LNG contracts with Italy, Belgium, Korea etc. for up to five years. Israeli Haifa hit by Iranian missiles, refinery damaged.

Qatar LNG stopped, Iranian gas field bombed, Europe natgas prices surge 35%. Iran heavily damaged Qatar’s LNG export facility, which accounts for one-fifth of global supply, restart may take years, European spot gas surged 35% intraday! Trump warned if Qatar LNG facility attacked again, U.S. will respond. Global supply tightens, combined with Europe winter stock draw, upward price pressure persists.

Report: Iran plans to charge “safe passage fee” for ships through Hormuz, Brent oil falls. Iran parliament brewing a bill for ships through Hormuz to pay Iran “safe passage fee”.

IMO warns: Even with navy escort, oil tanker safety not 100% guaranteed. Hormuz closure triggers most severe oil flow interruption in history, daily transit plummeted 97%. IMO warns navy escort may reduce risk exposure, but cannot reliably guarantee tanker safety—commercial ships and seamen remain exposed to real threat.

“Tripoli” warship heads to Middle East, concern U.S. may send ground forces to Iran. On March 17, U.S. “Tripoli” amphibious attack ship seen near Singapore, carrying U.S. personnel to Middle East. Some analysts say marine units may raid Iran’s coast, set up outposts along Hormuz, raising fears of U.S. sending ground troops to Iran.

Report: White House not considering oil/gas export ban currently. Experts warn export ban may backfire, not lower gas prices, trigger panic buying, global price surge. The export ban would hurt the U.S. reputation as “energy arsenal” and suppress long-term energy investment enthusiasm.

BOJ holds rates unchanged as expected, but says “must be wary of oil price hikes’ impact on inflation”！BOJ Governor: Soaring oil prices makes policy judgment hard, if economic outlook realized will continue rate hikes

BOJ held rates at 0.75% by 8-1 vote, but hawkish member Takata made rare proposal to hike directly to 1%, sees inflation goal basically met. For the first time, statement lists Middle East conflict and oil price as core risks, internal division and external variables intertwined, market awaits Ueda’s conference—for dovish wording, USD/JPY may surge to 160 level.
Ueda stated oil price hikes expected to bring upward pressure to overall inflation, may also lift inflation expectations/base inflation; prolonged high oil prices would worsen trade terms and depress economic activity. If economy/inflation trends meet forecast and keep improving, BOJ will continue to raise policy rates, emphasizing rate hike timing evaluated at every meeting.

ECB holds rates for the sixth time, Middle East conflict makes Eurozone outlook highly uncertain. Lagarde warns Iran conflict has substantial inflation impact, urges governments not to overdo measures on energy crisis.

ECB holds rates at 2% for the sixth time, but turned more hawkish due to Middle East conflict. Even as energy price shocks complicate policy, ECB sticks to 2% inflation target, future decisions will depend on core inflation, refuses to preset rate path. Traders cut ECB rate hike bets, expect 61bps hike before year end.
On Thursday, ECB president Lagarde issued one of her most direct warnings, pointing to potential inflation consequences of sustained Iran conflict. Lagarde urged all governments not to “overdo” support for people facing energy cost hikes, stressing fiscal discipline.

Bank of England holds rates, deletes “rate cut” language, “ready to act” on inflation, government bond yields soar! BOE warns of inflation risk, 2-year gilts up 27bps! Rare all-vote rate hold, statement deleted guidance for “rates may fall further”, signaling clear policy shift, opening door to rate hikes. Inflation expectations raised sharply, BOE highly alert to 2022 crisis replay.

U.S. initial jobless claims unexpectedly dropped to 205,000, lowest this year. Data shows businesses still prefer to retain staff, no massive layoffs. Continued claims slightly up, suggesting some slowdown in re-employment, poll shows “jobs hard to find”, businesses continue “no hiring, no firing”.

From rate cuts to rate hikes! Bond market expectations for Fed policy path undergo historic turnaround. Hit by BOE’s unexpected hawkishness, UK bond sell-off pushed U.S. Treasury yields higher; together with Thursday’s surprisingly low jobless claims, further undermines Fed’s case for loose stance. Cut expectations erased, narrative quickly flips from “when to cut” to “whether to hike”.

Metals slump across the board! Gold down over 4% below $4600, silver slumps 12%, London aluminum sees biggest drop since 2018! Middle East conflict pushes up energy prices/inflation expectations, kills rate cut space, sends gold/silver/industrial metals tumbling. Gold down seven days straight, once below $4600, silver plunged over 12%, LME aluminum and industrial metals posted biggest drops in years; combined with ongoing ETF outflows, risk aversion wanes—commodities under heavy pressure.

Waller’s Fed Chair nomination faces complexity! Report: Trump suggests DOJ should keep investigating Powell. Trump said Thursday he still supports DOJ investigating Fed Chair Powell. He also said Powell should cut rates immediately, but won’t, because he is stubborn and incompetent. Trump’s stance means Waller’s Fed Chair confirmation is complicated. Sources say earlier judge’s ruling gave Trump administration a chance to end probe, let disputes fade; if legal fight continues, Trump may wait much longer to appoint his preferred Fed Chair.

U.S. Senator Warren questions Waller over Epstein documents, demands response. Senator Warren sent a letter to Trump’s Fed Chair nominee Kevin Waller: “Your name seems to appear in Epstein files.” Warren asks Waller to respond on Epstein documents by March 31. Warren asks if Waller attended any events attended by Epstein.

Jensen Huang: AI leaders should avoid spreading panic, optimistic about Anthropic revenue breaking $1 trillion in 2030. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warns AI leaders to be measured when talking tech risk—"remind, don't scare". He sees biggest AI risk for U.S. national security is adoption slowdown due to fear. Though Anthropic mired in Pentagon contract dispute, Huang remains bullish on its commercial prospects, estimates 2030 annual revenue can exceed $1 trillion.

Selected Research Reports

Major escalation! Energy facilities involved, Wall Street “reassesses” Iran war timeline, raises “2022 scenario”. Core Middle East energy facilities involved, possibility for ending conflict and reopening the strait in April is fading. Escalation changing Wall Street’s view of conflict duration, analysts warn: If not ended by April, oil may spike to $150/barrel, some warn conflict may become “2022-style energy shock like Russia-Ukraine”, Trump’s hope for early withdrawal at risk.

Will Iran war trigger U.S. financial crisis? Hormuz closure cuts off petro-dollar cycle, hundreds of billions Middle East capital may withdraw from AI industry chain; meanwhile, $1.8 trillion U.S. private credit powder keg detonates from inside—BlackRock freezes redemptions, Apollo exec admits “it’s good if we can get back 20 cents on the dollar” for loans. As war spreads beyond “four-week quick finish” to fifth month, threefold crisis races toward same trigger point.

Market-recognized “new Fed Chair”: Oil. Noted investor Boockvar warns: Soaring oil now commands monetary policy; rate cut expectations dead. S&P 500 P/E at 21 times, U.S. stocks with no margin of safety, global slide toward stagflation abyss, the super bull in commodities only beginning.

Carlyle’s Jeff Currie: Current supply shock almost equals COVID period. Epic energy supply crisis hits! Jeff Currie warns: Oman crude spot surged to $173 yesterday, big gap between spot and futures. COVID era needed negative $37 crude for balancing supply/demand, now, with inventory exhausted, sky-high price needed to force demand drop, “this supply shock almost equals COVID demand shock”.

“Lobster” gives “memory” an extension? Morgan Stanley reports: AI agents like OpenClaw shift demand from “generating answers” to “completing tasks”, frequent tool-calling and multi-step workflow greatly increase CPU computation, causing main bottleneck. Frequent context sharing and KV cache offload makes DRAM replace HBM as hard constraint. This will trigger 2026Q2 memory price spike, Morgan Stanley boosts SK Hynix and Samsung earnings forecasts.

Domestic Macro

National general budget revenue rose 0.7% YoY in first two months, securities stamp tax surged 1.1 times, budget spending up 3.6%. Jan-Feb, national general budget revenue 4,415.4 billion yuan, up 0.7% YoY; budget spending 4,670.6 billion, up 3.6%. Government fund budget revenue 536.3 billion, down 16%; spending 1,317.4 billion, up 16%. Securities stamp tax up 1.1 times YoY, local land transfer revenue down 25% YoY.

CSRC holds “15th Five-Year” Capital Market Planning Investor Forum. Consensus: Under the strong leadership of CPC/State Council, CSRC and partners achieved key breakthroughs on China-style market stabilization, promoting medium-long term funds, boosting investor returns, resilience and anti-risk capacity reinforced. Forum gave suggestions on deepening investment-side reform, improving system adaptability/inclusiveness, strengthening market internal stability etc.

Domestic Companies

Hong Kong Cheng’s Empire: About to Change Surname? Hong Kong's veteran real estate giant New World Development is deep in debt crisis, facing first-ever default since listing in 2025, net debt ratio far above safe line. Crisis comes from aggressive mainland expansion and K11 projects after Cheng Zhigang took over. Now, the Cheng family and Blackstone are deadlocked over a $2.5B injection plan, core dispute is family control’s fate.

Eastmoney 2025 revenue up 38.5%, net profit up 25.7%, plans to pay 1 yuan per 10 shares.

China Unicom 2025 revenue/profit grew slightly, AI revenue up 140%, free cash flow notably improved.

Overseas Macro

U.S. January new home sales plunged to lowest since 2022, prices down 6.8% YoY. January new single-family homes fell 17.6% from December to annualized 587,000. Median sales price dropped 6.8% YoY to $400,500. Northeast sales down nearly 45%, Midwest down about 34%.

Yen approaches 160, Japan Finance Minister warns “ready to intervene at any time”. Yen close to 160, BOJ hold rates, focus moves to Governor Ueda’s position. Hawkish Fed and Middle East pushing oil prices means yen faces structural depreciation/stagflation risk. Finance Ministry issues strong intervention warning to deter speculators, but if BOJ tone not hawkish enough, yen risks breaching key psychological threshold.

Overseas Companies

Everyone watches Nvidia chips, Jensen Huang already built a “second pillar”. Nvidia’s networking business quietly became second largest revenue earner, after compute. Last quarter, networking revenue hit $11B, up 267% YoY, yearly revenue over $31B. Analysts note Nvidia’s quarterly networking revenue now exceeds Cisco’s full-year networking forecast.

Micron earnings call: AI makes memory a “strategic asset”! To handle shortages must spend big, first sign 5-year long-term deals, HBM4 direct supply to Nvidia. Micron’s latest earnings are strong, but $25B capital spending plan worries market about costs, causing stock to drop post-market. To tackle shortages and lock-in demand, Micron breaks tradition of annual contracts, signs first-ever 5-year strategic deal, HBM4 confirmed in mass production supply to Nvidia. Driven by AI demand, Q3 operating margin expected to reach 81%, highlights memory chips as decisive “strategic asset” in the AI era.

Strong earnings, but why did Micron shares fall? Analysts say post-earnings price pullback reflects market reassessment of high valuation/high capex combo’s profitability sustainability. Also, future focus will be how much Nvidia relies on Micron for HBM4 supply.

Industries / Concepts

1, Dyes | Per Jiemian News, March 19, Liyuan Technology’s nitrification workshop in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia, suffered an explosion. Two missing, three lightly injured, cause under further investigation. Public info: company finished 4,500 ton/year H-acid continuous nitrification project in 2024. Until March 2026, effective domestic H-acid capacity less than 60,000 tons/year.

Comment: CITIC Securities says H-acid is essential for reactive dye production, facing environmental/safety pressure. Reactive dyes are used for cotton, linen, wool, silk, etc. Global 65% of cotton clothing, home textiles rely on reactive dyes. H-acid is a key intermediate for reactive/acidity/direct dyes, covering 90+ types. Difficult wastewater & dangerous nitrification reaction mean environmental/safety pressure is high, many small/backward capacities eliminated over time. Since 2025, firms doing maintenance, big H-acid plants frequent fire accidents, supply stress may continue to intensify.

2, Natural Gas | March 19, European natgas prices surged after Iran intensified attacks on Gulf energy infra, damaging world’s biggest LNG plant. Benchmark natgas futures up as much as 35% on Thursday, highest since Dec 2022.

Comment: Galaxy Futures says crude & natgas carriers blocked by Hormuz, global gas supply hit, winter not fully over yet, price still rising. By 2026, global LNG supply expected to soar and demand fatigue, but if Qatar exports blocked, overall fundamentals tighten, missing Middle East supply will cause Europe/Asia scramble for resources, price spikes quickly.

3, Stem Cells | Third Boao Lecheng Stem Cell Conference from March 20-22 in Hainan, themed “Cell therapy leads the third medical revolution”, releases immune cell charge project list and industry evaluation standards, high-end exchange platform covering academic-clinical-industry-regulatory, brings new momentum for global cell therapy tech transfer & industrial upgrade.

Comment: Research organizations think stem cells, with multi-differentiation and self-renewal ability, show certain potentials in regenerative medicine/disease treatment, new hope for difficult immune/CV/neurodegenerative diseases, a major bio-med direction. Global market set to grow from $17B in 2025 to $33B in 2030 (CAGR 14%).

4, Beidou System | Beijing Business News: China Satellite Navigation Office announced Beidou Nav System will conduct orbital upgrades soon, will continuously strengthen satellite coordination/testing/service performance monitoring, ensure user experience. Industry insiders: This upgrade means Beidou shifts from “usable” to “easy-to-use”.

Comment: Analysis: As a provider of all-weather, all-time, high-precision positioning, navigation, timing services, Beidou as key national infrastructure is widely used in transportation, farming, hydrology, meteorology, telecommunications, power, disaster relief, public safety, etc. Beidou-based navigation is used by e-commerce, mobile terminals, location service firms—enters mass consumption, sharing economy, livelihoods. As Beidou improves, service value shifts from “empowering tool” to “ecosystem restructure”. NDRC data: In 2025, Beidou industry expected to reach 620B yuan. During “15th Five-Year” period, nation will continue Beidou scale application project, aim to break 1T yuan in five years, expand use in new fields.

5, AI Chips | Alibaba announced Pingtouge (chip design arm) independently developed GPU has realized large-scale mass production, supports end-to-end AI workloads (training, finetuning, inference), compatible with mainstream AI frameworks, boosts long-term compute supply, combined with Qianwen model/cloud computing, provides cost-effective AI services. Business has grown rapidly, now brings substantial contribution to cloud infra suppliers. On March 19, Alibaba Group’s FY2026 Q3 earnings call, CEO Wu Yongming said Pingtouge successfully commercialized, chip volume exceeds 470,000, annualized revenue scale over 10 billion, IPO possible but no clear timeline yet.

Today's News Outlook

China March one-year & five-year loan prime rates.

Germany February PPI.

U.S. Triple Witching Day.

Huawei launches new data storage products.

Xpeng releases earnings.

Risk Warning and DisclaimerThe market has risks, investment needs caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not consider individual user’s special investment goals, financial status or needs. Users should consider whether opinions, views or conclusions in this article are suitable for their own situation. If investing based on this, responsibility is your own. ```