"The market is evolving, so trading models naturally have to evolve too," Xu Qiao said. "The question right now is how to evolve."
Old Zhang thought for a moment and said, "In an extreme bear market, I don't think researching this holds much meaning. Since Brother Su has stopped playing short-term momentum and completely pivoted to so-called 'value investment', embracing heavyweight blue-chip stocks and high-performing blue-chip stocks, why don't we just follow his lead and do the same?"
"Old Zhang's idea is certainly convenient," Old Wu chuckled. "Indeed, the easiest approach is to follow the institution Huayi Capital managed by Brother Su. In a bear market, chasing excessively high absolute returns is entirely pointless. Preserving principal and pursuing stability are what matter most."
Brother Chen thoroughly agreed with Old Wu's remark, smiling as he replied, "Old Wu is spot on. When the short-term market ecosystem is terrible and seven out of ten trades result in losses, you shouldn't trade during these poor conditions. Instead, you should choose a trading model with a lower risk appetite, making principal preservation and profit drawdown control your foundational conditions while patiently waiting for the short-term ecosystem to improve."
"Listening to Brother Chen..." Xu Qiao asked, "does that mean you're planning to give up short-term trading?"
Brother Chen replied, "Since the market's investment style and trading direction are clearly shifting, and the stock of surviving capital continuing to engage in short-term trading and speculation is dwindling while the cruelty of the game is intensifying, there's naturally no need for me to persist during this stage."
"Agreed," Old Wu nodded in response. "Steering clear of the sectors with the heaviest losses is always the smartest choice."
Old Zhang thought it over and said, "Since Brother Chen and Old Wu both feel this way, I'm also planning to scale back my short-term trading and reduce the frequency of my entries."
"Mhm," Old Wu continued. "Following the direction where the market's dominant capital clusters is never wrong."
"If we're going to transform our trading mindset and investment style..." Xu Qiao pondered for a moment before saying, "it feels like the 'Mega-Infrastructure' sector is still the safer bet, right? After all, judging from current market valuations and fundamentals, only the core leading stocks in related sectors of the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme—such as real estate, steel, coal, non-ferrous metals, architectural decoration, and building materials—have just achieved a consensus expectation among various market dominant capitals.
Their valuations are relatively low, and their share prices are still sitting at historical lows. As for the others... the core stocks in the pharmaceutical and consumption sectors where market-making institutions have heavily huddled together have long since climbed out of the deep crater of the stock crash, generally rebounding 30% to 50% from the bottom.
The market is already in a bear market characterized by low investment risk appetite.
Overall market valuations shrink in tandem with declining trading volumes and lower risk appetites.
Therefore, chasing high-priced core leading stocks in the pharmaceutical and consumption sectors—where dominant capital has already gathered and profit-taking chips have piled up densely—looks distinctly inadvisable.
After all, in a bear market, the valuations of these stocks cannot possibly return to their bull-market peaks.
Looking at it this way... right now, it feels like only the core leading stocks within the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main-theme sectors possess medium-to-long-term investment value and the cost-performance ratio for heavy positioning."
"Judging from the price trajectories across all market main themes and the performance of related core stocks, that is indeed the case," Old Zhang said. "Moreover, with the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme, it feels like our A-share market and the Hong Kong market are also clearly showing sustained linkage signs. All things considered, in terms of investment cost-performance, aside from sitting in cash, this core main theme of 'Mega-Infrastructure' is truly the most suitable for building positions."
"There are quite a few core leading stocks related to the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme..." Brother Chen smiled and said. "As for specific targets, which stocks are you guys bullish on?"
Xu Qiao replied, "Based on the market performance over the past few days, the most resilient tickers on the tape are probably Gemdale Corporation, Poly Real Estate, Jincheng Coal Industry, Conch Cement, Orient Hongyu, China Metallurgical, and Yungui Copper..."
"There are also Hong Kong stocks like Evergrande Real Estate, Sunac China, and Shimao Group..." Old Wu added. "Relatively speaking, these mainland property stocks on the Hong Kong market seem to hold higher future expectations, stronger share price elasticity, and lower market valuations compared to the leading real estate stocks in the A-share market."
"I think Conch Cement is a great ticker," Old Zhang smiled and said. "This company's operational radius is concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta region—the area with the strongest economic growth momentum and the highest concentration of wealth in our country. If the industry reverses, this company's performance elasticity should be exceptionally high.
Furthermore, its current valuation and share price are genuinely cheap, and there was no obvious institutional holding beforehand. This implies that once the fundamentals of this ticker completely reverse, various institutions will have a strong desire to allocate into it. Entering with a heavy position at this stage... you can just wait for institutional capital to help carry your sedan chair later."
"They're all quite good," Brother Chen said after listening to everyone's insights. "You can selectively build an average portfolio across them."
"Hehe, that's precisely what I was thinking," Xu Qiao said with a smile, seeing that his thoughts coincided with Brother Chen's. "Still, we should check today's market Long and Tiger lists first."
With that, Xu Qiao glanced at the time and immediately turned his attention to the Long and Tiger list interface of the two exchanges.
While these core figures of the "Shanghai Ultra-Short Syndicate" were expressing their views on the recent market and planning to emulate Su Yi by transforming their trading mindset, embracing blue-chip heavyweights and high-performing blue-chips, and following the core dominant capital's clustering direction and main-theme hotspots...
On stock investment forums gathering other retail investor groups across the market, everyone was also engaged in fierce discussions regarding recent market movements and the intraday major bullish candle.
"We can finally hold our heads high! We finally waited for a broad-based rally today."
"The only things rising are the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme and traditional sectors like pharmaceuticals, consumption, and finance, right? 'Emerging industry' sectors like 'mobile internet', 'film & media', 'consumer electronics', and 'semiconductors' still haven't moved much.
Sigh... what a market cycle. Traditional energy, black commodities, and mega-infrastructure sectors that nobody wanted and no dominant capital paid attention to previously have unexpectedly turned into hot commodities pursued by capital lately."
"Didn't they say the steel and coal industries suffer from severe overcapacity, and many companies have long been insolvent? Why are their share prices rising consecutively instead?"
"The worse a company's performance, the higher its share price rises—isn't that a unique specialty of our Big A?"
"I feel like this has nothing to do with fundamentals; it's still a chip issue, right? Sectors like steel, coal, non-ferrous metals, and real estate fell hard enough beforehand, leaving a complete vacuum in their chip structures. They're easy to pull up, so capital played them."
"Does that mean... the rally logic for the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme is still just an oversold rebound?"
"Feels like an oversold rebound to me."
"Weren't they saying the rally is driven by the 'supply-side structural reform' policy?"
"With overcapacity as severe as it is in the steel and coal industries, will 'supply-side structural reform' even work? Besides... what room for imagination do traditional industries like these have?"
"What about real estate then? Is that an oversold rebound too?"
"The logic for the real estate sector feels a bit different, doesn't it? After all, housing prices in major global cities are indeed rising continuously."
"Real estate should be called a valuation repair. After all, the market's previous prejudice against the real estate sector was genuinely too heavy."
"Valuation repair is one aspect, and an industry fundamental reversal is another, right?"
"Isn't it because the principal fund product 'Huayi Expedition No. 1' managed by President Su recently expanded its positions massively in traditional industry sectors like 'real estate', 'non-ferrous metals', 'coal', 'steel', and 'cement', thereby kicking off this speculative rally? What long-term logic is there? In my view... it's just short-term speculation."
"Short-term speculation? Doesn't look like it, does it?"
"Right, if it's short-term speculation, can sector-wide major capital experience net inflows of two to three billion yuan every single day?"
"That means dominant major capital is indeed rotating its positions and going long in traditional sectors like 'real estate', 'non-ferrous metals', 'coal', and 'steel'?"
"That's for sure; market trends and capital flows don't lie."
"Is it possible that these dominant capitals over the past few days are just chasing-trend capital, and once short-term sentiment recedes, this capital will pull out too?"
"Can't be, right? Looks more like long-term capital building positions!"
"I always feel like traditional industry sectors like real estate, steel, and coal can't quite carve out the kind of independent sector rally that consumption and pharmaceuticals managed earlier."
"I also feel the investment logic for these traditional industry sectors is much weaker than consumption and pharmaceuticals."
"Still, it doesn't feel like an uptrend forced open by President Su alone using his trading seat, right? Furthermore... if these traditional industry sectors lacked underlying logic, why would all these massive capitals follow suit on a large scale? Why would they help carry the sedan chair for the 'Huayi Expedition No. 1' fund managed by President Su?"
"I don't know about steel and coal, but the real estate sector definitely holds certain expectations."
"If housing prices across various tiers of cities rise by 50% offline, the share prices of core real estate leading stocks in the property sector should at least rise by 50 too, right?"
"If nationwide housing prices generally rise by 50%, property stocks will definitely soar by much more than 50%."
"Regardless of how you look at it, current leading stocks in the real estate sector are definitely worth investing in."
"That goes without saying; otherwise, why would Boss Yao spend tens of billions of yuan to forcefully contest the equity of Vanke, and pay such a heavy price to frantically snap up Vanke shares on the secondary market?"
"Based on Vanke's current share price, Boss Yao has already pocketed a profit of around 10 billion yuan, right?"
"Truly awesome—pocketing 10 billion in profits effortlessly!"
"Still not as profitable as President Su. President Su is the one easily pulling in hundreds of billions in profits."
"President Su feels like the ultimate bull in our Big A market. Practically all dominant institutional capital in the industry, especially private equity firms, are trimming positions and running low-weight operations. Only President Su... still maintains his principal fund products heavily positioned on the long side."
"Isn't the crucial point not just that President Su is heavily long, but that he manages to nail the market rhythm every single time?"
"Mind you, it's not that President Su follows the market rhythm—he creates the market rhythm and creates the market's main-theme rallies. Just look at the past half-year or so: from the 'new energy industrial chain' to 'consumer baijiu', to the 'pharmaceutical' main theme, and now to the 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme—which main-theme rally wasn't excavated and brought out by President Su?"
"That's true. President Su's ability to uncover market main themes is truly second to none."
"The market over the past half-year has been genuinely brutal when it's hard, but genuinely easy when it's good. As long as you trade along the main themes attacked by President Su and avoid chasing short-term market trends blindly, it's basically hard to lose money."
"Feels like President Su is the main-theme excavator of our Big A market!"
"If you ask me... many of these dominant institutions in the market need to thank President Su. If President Su hadn't excavated these main-theme opportunities, the market might have performed even more miserably."
"Looking at it this way... will this core main theme of 'Mega-Infrastructure' also become the next consumption and pharmaceutical main theme?"
"Can't say for certain it will, but keeping a continuous eye on it is definitely necessary."
"It depends on the follow-up posture of major institutional capital. If massive groups of dominant capital continue following suit to build positions, then having this core main theme of 'Mega-Infrastructure' break out will be a matter of course."
Amidst the discussions and speculations of countless retail investors on the forums regarding market trends and main-theme price action,
the clock quickly struck 5:00 PM.
At this moment, the Long and Tiger list data for the two exchanges was officially released.
As it turned out, on the fiercely debated online stock trading communication forum and within internal chat groups of retail investor circles nationwide, countless gazes instantly shifted toward the newly disclosed Long and Tiger lists.
When everyone's eyes converged on the freshly refreshed lists, searching for the influential seat of the "Huaxin Securities, Shanghai Financial Street Fuxing Road Branch", they discovered that this heavyweight seat did not appear among the buying and selling seats of major stocks for the day.
Instead, institutional seats—symbolizing domestic mutual funds—appeared heavily on the core leading stocks that the "Fuxing Road" seat had bought into the day before, showing widespread net buying stances.
Furthermore, aside from the institutional buying seats appearing on many of the core "Mega-Infrastructure" main-theme stocks bought by "Fuxing Road" yesterday, across the entire domain of the "Mega-Infrastructure" main theme, plenty of other listed stocks also featured a significant number of institutional seats.
"Why are there so many institutional seats?"
Seeing the unbroken string of institutional buying flags across several listed stocks on the Long and Tiger lists, Zhao Craig—an active figure within the "Yuhang-faction dominant hot-money chat group"—was noticeably startled.
"Could it be that a massive market rally is truly about to erupt in this 'Mega-Infrastructure' main theme?"
(End of Chapter)