Late-night Chinese assets surge collectively! Meituan jumps 14.43%, U.S. chip stocks soar, ARM up over 16%

On March 25, local time, the three major U.S. stock indexes opened higher and then traded broadly higher, closing up across the board. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 305.43 points, up 0.66%, to close at 46,429.49 points; the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.77% to close at 21,929.83 points; and the S&P 500 rose 0.54% to close at 6,591.90 points.

Chip stocks surged, while storage stocks weakened

The Wind U.S. Technology Mega Cap Index closed up 0.80% for the day. Among marquee tech stocks, winners outnumbered laggards. Amazon rose 2.16%, Nvidia rose 1.99%, Tesla rose 0.76%, Apple and Meta rose more than 0.3%; only Microsoft, affected by a split in market sentiment, closed slightly down by nearly 0.5%.

In sharp contrast to the weakness in storage, the chip sector became the standout main theme in the U.S. stock market that day. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ultimately closed up 1.2%. Arm surged sharply after releasing a new AI data center chip, saying the product is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue and that a single product could generate $15 billion in revenue by 2031. The stock surged 16.38% in a single day. At the same time, market news indicated that Intel and AMD have notified customers that they will raise CPU prices in March and April. The two chip giants’ stock prices both rose more than 7%—AMD closed up 7.36%, Intel rose 7.08%. Qualcomm and TSMC also recorded gains of 1.3% in tandem.

Against the strong heat in the chip sector, the storage sector collectively weakened on the day. Western Digital fell 1.63%, Seagate fell 2.6%, Micron Technology and SanDisk fell more than 3%. Micron Technology even experienced a fifth consecutive daily decline. The core reason behind the sector weakness stems from Google’s recent launch of the new memory compression technology TurboQuant, which can compress key-value caches for large language models to 3 bits, achieving 6x memory reduction and up to 8x acceleration. This directly sparked market concerns about the outlook for AI storage demand. Coupled with the sector’s prior high gains, investors’ willingness to lock in profits has significantly increased.

Chinese assets surge collectively, with Meituan up 14.43%

Chinese concept stocks outperformed the broader U.S. market that day, with China assets experiencing a collective breakout. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index closed up 1.86%, and the Wind China Concept Technology Leaders Index rose 1.93%. On the individual stock level, Meituan-ADR surged 14.43% driven by earnings, while JD.com rose 8.30%, Pinduoduo rose 4.61%, Alibaba rose 3.50%, Baidu and Xiaomi Group - ADR rose over 2%, and Li Auto, Bilibili, and others also recorded gains exceeding 1%.

The positive earnings reports from food delivery giants and e-commerce platforms are clearly the immediate catalysts for this rally, but the deeper reason may be that after a long adjustment period, Chinese concept stocks have already priced in geopolitical risks sufficiently. Driven by valuation advantages and improving fundamentals, capital is gradually flowing back.

Precious metals remain strong, while international oil prices fall sharply

The commodities market showed clear divergence: precious metals continued their strong upward trend, while international oil prices experienced a significant decline. By the close, COMEX gold futures for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 2.2%, trading around $4,530 per ounce. COMEX silver futures rose 2.6% to $70.41 per ounce. Spot gold at one point broke above $4,600 intraday, and in early Asian trading, it remained at a high above $4,500 per ounce. Gold stocks also moved higher in tandem, with Harmony Gold rising over 5%, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, and Kinross Gold all rising more than 4%, and Barrick Gold up over 2%.

In the crude oil market, influenced by expectations of easing Middle East conflicts, international oil prices fell sharply that day. The NYMEX May light crude futures declined $2.03 per barrel to close at $90.32, down 2.2%. Brent crude futures for May on the London market fell $2.27 per barrel to close at $102.22, down 2.17%. Despite the decline, multiple institutions warned that geopolitical uncertainties still pose upside risks to oil prices. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, explicitly stated that if Iran “still poses a threat” after the conflict ends, oil prices could rise to $150 per barrel, potentially triggering a “global recession.” Huian Futures also pointed out that domestic and international regulatory policies can only temporarily stabilize market volatility and cannot fully eliminate uncertainties caused by geopolitical risks. In the long term, the key variable for oil prices remains the duration and final outcome of this conflict.

Inflation pressures rebound, reversing expectations for the Fed’s rate path

In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields declined across the board. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell 7.6 basis points to 4.32%. The 2-year Treasury yield, closely tied to rate expectations, also fell 6.1 basis points to 3.88%. The surge in oil prices caused by the Iran-U.S. conflict has reignited inflation concerns, completely reversing the Fed’s previous rate outlook. The CME Group’s FedWatch tool shows that the market currently does not price in any rate cuts this year, whereas before the conflict, markets had expected two rate cuts within the year.

Recent economic data also confirmed a rebound in inflation. U.S. February import prices increased 1.3% month-over-month, the largest rise since March 2022, and up 1.3% year-over-year—the largest annual increase since February 2025. Excluding fuel and food, core import prices rose 1.2% month-over-month and surged 3.0% year-over-year. In the housing market, U.S. mortgage rates have risen for three consecutive weeks, reaching the highest level since October last year. For the week ending March 20, the 30-year mortgage rate increased 13 basis points to 6.43%. As a result, the mortgage application index fell 5.4% that week—the largest decline since January—and refinance applications dropped 14.6%. The rising cost of housing financing continues to exert downward pressure on the housing market.

Iran proposes five ceasefire conditions

Just as the market rebounded on “ceasefire expectations,” the reality at the negotiation table remains tense. White House Press Secretary Levitt explicitly stated that U.S.-Iran negotiations are ongoing, warning Iran “not to misjudge the situation again.” However, Iran firmly rejected the U.S. proposal of a “15-point ceasefire plan,” instead presenting its own five conditions, including: the enemy halting “acts of aggression and assassination,” establishing mechanisms to prevent future conflicts, war reparations, a comprehensive ceasefire across all fronts, and “Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is—and will remain—an inherent and lawful right of Iran.”

Iran’s armed forces further declared that the rules for passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be “redefined”—any party associated with forces hostile to Iran will have no right of passage. This statement indicates that the critical energy transportation chokepoint is now under unprecedented geopolitical risk.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered that within 48 hours, Israel should “destroy as many Iranian defense industry facilities as possible,” driven by concerns