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A-Stock

After an AI stock pullback, first look at how the crowded trades unravel/dissipate.

Looking back at this on Beijing Time June 9, 2026—the line from June 5 is no longer sufficient. On June 8, the A-share market failed to digest last Friday’s retracement of tech stocks; instead, the ChiNext board, STAR 50, CPO, and semiconductors continued to decline sharply. Simultaneously, US stocks also saw intraday pullbacks on June 8, with QQQ, SOXX, and a group of AI chip stocks exhibiting obvious rebounds. When looking at both markets together, the conclusion is even less straightforward: A-shares are continuing to dismantle crowded trades, while US stocks are performing high-elasticity rallies intraday. Neither of these events serves as concrete evidence that “clearing has been completed.”

The renewed surge of A-share semiconductors should not be bought based on industrial logic alone; caution is needed as this may constitute a crowded trade.

When the A-share semiconductor and AI hardware chains surge rapidly, two extreme reactions tend to emerge: one type of person feels that missing out on gains (FOMO) is more painful than actually incurring losses, while another believes that excessive rises necessarily signal a bubble.

Both of these are too fast. In areas like semiconductors, computing power, optical modules, and storage, the industrial logic might be true. AI training and inference will indeed boost hardware demand, and domestic substitution has certainly provided narrative space and order opportunities for local companies. The problem is that just because the industrial logic holds true does not mean that the probability of investing in it now is good.

Similar market trends have occurred repeatedly in history: the liquor sector (Baijiu), new energy, pharmaceuticals, core asset grouping, and TMT. Each time, there was real logic behind it. When these sectors decline, it doesn’t necessarily mean the logic has disappeared; rather, the timing/rhythm between valuation, positioning, earnings realization, and liquidity was off.

Moutai's Net Profit Drops for the First Time, and it's Not Just Because Young People Aren't Drinking Baijiu

This matter deserves separate discussion because it directly impacts how we view Maotai. Previously, many people treated Maotai as an eternally rising consumption myth, and whether young people drank it or not was just a minor factor. Now, that is no longer the case. It is true that young people naturally have little interest in Baijiu (Chinese liquor), but this is more like a slow-moving variable. The sudden turnaround reported in the annual report appears to be driven by the contraction of an entire old system: obsolete business demands, traditional wealth distribution methods, and established status-driven consumption patterns.

The Renminbi exchange rate has experienced significant fluctuations, breaking above 7.26.

The fluctuations in the Renminbi exchange rate and the decline in the A-share market may be related to the dynamics of global central banks, the unexpected interest rate cut by the Swiss Central Bank, the performance of U.S. economic data, and adjustments in market expectations regarding inflation and interest rate cuts. These factors jointly acted on the foreign exchange market and stock market, leading to fluctuations in the Renminbi and the decline in the A-share market.