Real-time News

May 21 – Despite a sharp rise in Australia's unemployment rate in April, the job market remains relatively tight. Ernst & Young Chief Economist Cheryl Murphy stated that the 5.8% underemployment rate is well below pre-pandemic levels, while labor demand appears to remain high, with businesses continuing to report difficulties finding suitable workers. Murphy added that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) recently warned of the risk of rapid price increases due to rising petrol prices. She indicated that the RBA may need to further tighten monetary policy.

On May 21st, Goldman Sachs released a research report stating that Baidu's (09888.HK) first-quarter results this year showed accelerated growth in cloud revenue, especially GPU-based cloud services. The bank expects Baidu's AI-driven business to grow by over 30% year-on-year, primarily benefiting from the robust growth of its AI cloud infrastructure (over 50% year-on-year). The bank anticipates that by the end of 2026, the contribution of AI-driven business will surpass that of traditional/other businesses. Management revealed at an analyst conference that Baidu aims to outpace the market and major peers in cloud business growth in the coming quarters. The company observed that token usage is shifting from training to inference, which will help Baidu Cloud expand its customer reach. The report quoted management as saying that the Wenxin Yiyan model is currently lagging behind, and future R&D will focus on revitalizing model capabilities, prioritizing the development of Wenxin Yiyan to drive MaaS (Model as a Service) revenue. Goldman Sachs expects a mid-term gross margin target of 35% to 40% for the GPU cloud business, while the gross margin for traditional CPU and memory services will be 25% to 30%. Management aims to reduce the holding company discount by having AI-driven businesses account for more than 50% of total revenue and by rapidly growing core cloud/chip revenue.

May 21 – The 2026 APEC Trade Ministers' Meeting will be held in Suzhou, attracting approximately 700 representatives from 21 APEC economies and international organizations. A global investment promotion conference is also being held concurrently, attracting business representatives from over 30 countries and regions, with US-based companies making up the largest number of attendees. Suzhou hopes to leverage this event to promote international trade and economic cooperation. Data shows that foreign investment in China's high-tech industries increased by 30.7% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, while R&D and design services grew by 127.8%. Foreign companies are accelerating their expansion in the Chinese market, particularly in the new energy and medical fields, increasing investment and R&D, and driving global trade and economic development.

Analysts point out that Saudi Arabia has been forced to shut down some oil fields due to disruptions in oil exports caused by the war with Iran, which has led to a disruption in natural gas supply. It is expected that Saudi Arabia will burn more imported fuel oil for power generation this summer.

According to Nikkei, the Arafura rare earth project in Australia will begin construction in September.

According to data from Fubao Information, the average price of 99.99% gold on Fubao today is 998.9 yuan/gram (+13.4 yuan/gram), spot silver (#1) is 18678 yuan/kilogram (+688 yuan/kilogram), spot 99.95% platinum is 483.5 yuan/gram (+3 yuan/gram), spot 99.95% palladium is 332 yuan/gram (+1 yuan/gram), spot 99.95% rhodium is 2413 yuan/gram (-14 yuan/gram), spot 99.95% iridium is 1841 yuan/gram (-1 yuan/gram), and spot 99.95% ruthenium is 398 yuan/gram (unchanged).

May 21 - The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will hold its May press conference at 10:00 AM on Friday, May 22, in the conference room on the third floor of the NDRC's annex building.

Melius Research: Raises its price target for Nvidia (NVDA.O) from $380 to $400.

Hong Kong stocks rallied before retreating, with the Hang Seng Index and Hang Seng Tech Index both turning negative before midday.

On May 21, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the special campaign to regulate administrative law enforcement involving enterprises. Lin Qiang, Director of the Legal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Transport, stated that the Ministry of Transport will further consolidate the achievements of the special campaign, improve the long-term mechanism for regulating law enforcement involving enterprises, expand the hierarchical and categorized system for enterprise-related inspections, promote the "Artificial Intelligence + Transportation" initiative, persevere in its efforts, strengthen the construction of the law enforcement team, actively practice the concept of law enforcement for the people, and better solve problems and do practical things for the majority of transportation enterprises.

According to Japan's Kyodo News, data released by the Japanese government on Thursday showed that Japan's crude oil imports from the Middle East fell 67.2% year-on-year in April, marking the lowest level since comparable data became available in 1979.

On May 21, Hu Weilie, Vice Minister of Justice, stated at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office that during the special campaign to regulate administrative law enforcement involving enterprises, the Ministry of Justice has consistently emphasized that regulating inspections involving enterprises means regulating arbitrary inspections, not requiring fewer inspections or no inspections at all, but rather strictly enforcing the law in inspections. For areas closely related to the life, health, and property safety of the public, such as food and drugs and production safety, the strictest standards and requirements must be upheld, and the most effective supervision must be implemented.

On May 21st, Tesla officially announced its latest plans for a supervised version of Full Self-Driving (FSD), mentioning that this version can be used in China. Recently, Tesla China posted several job openings related to autonomous driving testing, sparking speculation within the industry about the accelerated rollout of FSD in the Chinese market. A reporter, posing as a consumer, contacted Tesla's official customer service, who replied: "The 64,000 RMB Autopilot feature is not compatible with all vehicles; some are only compatible with the 32,000 RMB Enhanced Autopilot feature. The company is actively pursuing the approval process in accordance with relevant national regulations, and will push the approval to domestic customers as soon as possible."

Futures Commentary by Everbright Futures: On May 20th, COMEX gold initially fell before rising, surging intraday to close at $4546.2 per ounce, a gain of 0.78%. Domestic SHFE gold futures opened higher and continued to rise in the night session, closing at 995.92 yuan per gram, a gain of 0.88%. 1. Geopolitically, Trump stated on Wednesday that negotiations between the US and Iran had entered the "final stage," reiterating that war would be "very rapid." Meanwhile, media reports indicated that some oil tankers had begun to re-enter the Strait of Hormuz. According to reports, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy stated on Wednesday that 26 ships, including oil tankers, container ships, and other merchant vessels, had passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours, coordinated with Iran. Influenced by this news, the US dollar and US Treasury yields fell slightly, providing support for gold. However, given the relatively volatile geopolitical news, the impact of further developments on gold prices should be closely monitored. 2. The minutes of the Federal Reserve's April policy meeting, released yesterday, showed that participants generally believed that given persistently high inflation data and the uncertainty surrounding the duration of the Middle East conflict and its economic impact, the period of remaining on hold might exceed previous expectations. If the US-Iran conflict keeps inflation high, a rate hike might indeed be necessary. However, since previous expectations for a rate hike had already been partially priced in, the impact on gold prices was limited. Looking ahead, the assessment of the US-Iran conflict remains the dominant factor for gold. Until these uncertainties are effectively resolved, investors should lower their expectations for gold prices in the first half of the year.

According to the official measurement of the China Earthquake Networks Center, a 3.3-magnitude earthquake occurred at 10:15 a.m. on May 21 in Kuqa City, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang (41.40 degrees north latitude, 83.89 degrees east longitude), with a focal depth of 15 kilometers.

On May 21, Bank of Japan policy board member Junko Koeda expressed support for raising the benchmark interest rate, the latest sign that momentum is building for action as early as next month. "I believe that potential inflation could exceed 2% in the future," Koeda said on Thursday in a speech to local business leaders in Fukuoka, western Japan. "Therefore, I believe it is reasonable for the Bank of Japan to raise the policy rate at an appropriate pace to address high inflation, while considering the pros and cons to the economy." At the April policy meeting, Koeda was one of the majority members who voted to keep the rate unchanged; that meeting saw a 6-3 vote, the largest split since Governor Kazuo Ueda took office. While Koeda did not specify her preferred timing for the next move, her comments likely support speculation that the authorities will raise rates at the next policy decision on June 16. She is the second member in the majority to hint at a possible future rate hike, after the Bank of Japan stated earlier this month that the authorities should raise rates "at the earliest possible stage" as long as the economy remains stable.