Focus recap: The Shanghai Composite Index surged then fell back, breaking below the half-year line; energy storage concept remains hot, while the computing power leasing concept plummeted in the afternoon.

Transmitted from: Caixin News

Caixin News reported on March 20 that today 28 stocks hit the daily limit, 23 stocks opened lower, with a limit-up rate of 55%. Shenhuafa A and Huadian Liaoneng achieved five consecutive limit-ups, Dashengda and Shaoneng Co. got three consecutive limit-ups, Huadian Energy had six limit-ups in nine days, and Zhengtai Power and Guosheng Technology had four limit-ups in eight days. The market saw a high followed by a decline throughout the day, with the Shanghai Composite Index oscillating and breaking below the six-month moving average, falling below the 4,000-point level. The ChiNext Index quickly dropped after hitting a new high for the year during the session. The differentiation between the yellow and white second-tier stocks was significant, with small-cap stocks broadly declining, and the micro-cap stock index falling over 3%. The total transaction amount in the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets was 2.29 trillion yuan, an increase of 175.9 billion compared to the previous trading day. Across the market, over 4,700 stocks fell for two consecutive days. In terms of sectors, photovoltaic, energy storage, electric power, and lithium batteries led the gains; computing power leasing, oil and gas, and chemical sectors suffered the most. By the close, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.24%, the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.25%, and the ChiNext Index rose 1.3%.

Analysis of Popular and Consecutive Limit-Up Stocks

The upgrade rate of consecutive limit-up stocks rose to 50%. Except for Huadian Liaoneng, which achieved a 4-to-5 upgrade, the other limit-up stocks advanced with hollow boards. With international oil prices retracting yesterday, the chemical and oil and gas sectors, which had seen a partial recovery, experienced widespread declines. The previously hot computing power leasing concept became a heavy casualty today, with Yitian Smart and Xiechuang Data hitting the daily limit down in the afternoon, while popular stocks like Dongfang Guoxin and Hongjing Technology also fell significantly. In the early session, the popular stock Yuanjie Technology for optical modules once hit the daily limit up and surpassed Cambrian, becoming the eighth stock in A-shares history to exceed 1,000 yuan. Battery leader CATL’s stock price approached historical highs, attracting more funds into computing hardware and new energy heavyweight stocks, which led to liquidity losses for thematic small-cap stocks, causing the micro-cap stock index to plunge over 3% in the afternoon. The current extreme polarization in the market reflects a liquidity crisis, which may further fuel short-term panic sentiment.

Mainline Hotspots

As conflicts in the Middle East intensify, energy production facilities, including natural gas, have become targets of attacks. Yesterday, ICE British natural gas futures rose 121.5% from the 2026 low, while TTF Dutch natural gas futures rose 120.8%. The rise in upstream gas prices is expected to be passed on to electricity prices, strengthening the outlook for the energy storage industry chain, with explosive gains in the inverter sector. Shangneng Electric and Shouhang New Energy hit the daily limit up, while Jinlang Technology, Yuneng Technology, and Deyu Co. saw significant gains. Additionally, benefiting from the strong demand for energy storage batteries, the battery industry chain also welcomed a robust rebound, with Shida Shenghua, Putailai, and Ganfeng Lithium hitting the daily limit. Huabao New Energy and Penghui Energy both rose over 10%. Aside from overseas concerns about energy security and the strong installation demand for distributed energy storage projects, the extreme requirements for stable power supply by domestic AIDC make energy storage support likely to upgrade to a necessity. However, the current new energy sector, led by energy storage, remains highly tied to the emotional drivers of the Middle East situation, and the excessive concentration of short-term funds in the new energy sector still carries risks of short-term volatility.

Caixin News reporters learned from sources that the Space X team under Musk is expected to ship equipment to a leading domestic heterojunction equipment manufacturer in the first week of May. The photovoltaic industry chain saw a broad surge in the afternoon but continued to oscillate and decline throughout the day. Jiejia Weichuang and Junda Co. hit their daily limits but saw their gains significantly narrow, while Maiwei Co., Laplace, and Aotwei, among others, also all showed long upper shadow candlesticks. In fact, in late January this year, the expectation of SpaceX’s factory audit triggered a notable surge in related leading stocks such as heterojunction, perovskite batteries, upstream processing equipment, and CPI films. However, with today’s renewed bulk explosion, the pressure from locked-in profits above remains difficult to digest quickly. Moreover, the traditional commercial aerospace sector has already completed some repair actions, while stocks like Shunhao Co. and Aerospace Development, which were popular earlier, have once again faced sharp declines, making it difficult for space photovoltaic to break away from the overall commercial aerospace concept trend and form an independent market.

Recently, the Datang Ningxia branch plans to form a total planned scale of 4.6 million kilowatts and a total investment of nearly 20 billion yuan for a two-phase project of a big data computing power industry green electricity park in Zhongwei, Ningxia, which will become the largest collaborative green electricity supply project in China. The green electricity industry chain continues to maintain its previous strength, with Huadian Liaoneng, Shaoneng Co., and Huadian Energy achieving consecutive limit-up upgrades. Jiuzhou Group once hit the daily limit up, and Guangdong Power A and GCL-Poly Energy briefly surged close to the limit up during the session. According to Huachuang Securities’ calculations, for IDC, green electricity is cheaper than grid electricity. Electricity costs account for 56.7% of the operating costs of data centers. For example, in a certain IDC project, the direct purchase of grid electricity costs 0.25 yuan, while wind and solar storage direct connection costs 0.19 yuan, leading to a 24% reduction in electricity expenses. Therefore, the integration of domestic data centers with regional green electricity projects remains a trend. However, former computing power collaborative popular stocks like Jinkai New Energy still face significant short-term pressure, and the recent spread of the electricity sector towards low-position pure green electricity stocks suggests a possibility of further differentiation next week after continuous internal high-low adjustments.

At the 2026 OFC conference, optical communication industry leader Lumentum expects EML capacity to grow over 50% by the end of the 2026 fiscal year compared to 2025. Overnight, US stocks in the optical communication sector maintained their strength, with Tower Semiconductor soaring nearly 17%, and both Lumentum and Applied Optoelectronics rising over 10%. The CPO concept saw another widespread surge in the early session, with the optical chip concept stock Yunnan Ge Industry hitting the daily limit up early, and Yuanjie Technology briefly reaching the daily limit up, with a total market value nearing 100 billion yuan. Changguang Huaxin and Xinyisheng set historical highs. However, the afternoon downturn in the computing power leasing concept still weighed down computing hardware stocks. The current strength on the hardware side is based on strong demand for upstream optical devices from overseas data center construction, but the short-term trajectory of US tech stocks is still somewhat constrained by the Middle East conflict, and the core large stocks within the sector remain near historical highs, indicating that short-term risks may still outweigh returns.

Market Outlook

Today, the market showed an extremely polarized trend, with active funds further narrowing to heavyweight stocks in the new energy and computing power hardware sectors, causing the ChiNext Index to temporarily surge over 3%. The continuous divergence in the intraday yellow and white lines of the index saw the decline of small micro-cap thematic stocks expand in the afternoon, leading to the micro-cap stock index plummeting over 3% and breaking below the 60-day moving average. As the Shanghai Composite Index fell below the six-month moving average for the first time since April 7 of last year, the annual candlestick line has also turned downward, with the number of daily limit downs rising to double digits today, and the sustained increase in the entities of recent indices falling over 5% indicates concentrated release of panic selling in the market today. However, the Shanghai Composite Index has remained below the daily Bollinger lower band for two consecutive days, which may trigger a short-term technical rebound. Yet, on the weekly level, the Shanghai Composite Index is still in the early stages of a downward crossover in MACD and KDJ, and to quickly reverse the downward trend, attention is needed on when the index can regain the five-week moving average.

Analysis Chart of Today’s Limit-Up Stocks

(Caixin News, Jin Haoming)