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On August 13, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the theme of "Starting the 15th Five-Year Plan." The conference introduced that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will further strengthen ecological supervision and strive to build a more precise and efficient modern ecological supervision system. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, efforts will focus on three aspects: "Systematization" of ecological status assessment: Systematically conduct multi-scale ecological status assessments at the national, key regional, nature reserve, and ecological protection red line levels to comprehensively grasp the ecological baseline and changing trends, and verify the effectiveness of ecological protection and restoration work. "Precision" in the discovery and handling of ecological damage: Continuously optimize satellite imagery monitoring to improve the accuracy of discovering ecological damage. Launch the "Green Shield" campaign to severely punish all kinds of illegal and irregular ecological damage. Improve the graded judgment system for ecological damage incidents, clarify the standards, work processes, and handling requirements for judgment, and achieve standardized management throughout the entire process. "Digitalization" of ecological monitoring and supervision: Deepen the application of new technologies such as satellite remote sensing, AI image interpretation, environmental DNA, voiceprint recognition, large-scale models, and intelligent agents, and promote the iterative upgrading of the national ecological protection and restoration supervision platform. We will continue to optimize the layout of comprehensive ecological quality monitoring stations and sample plots to enhance our monitoring capabilities for ecological quality and biodiversity. We will leverage technology to empower ecological supervision, making it more precise, efficient, and intelligent.

August 13th - This week, the performance of major Australian banks reflected the extent of the sluggish Australian property market, leading to a decline in bank share prices and highlighting pressure on profitability. Since the government's May budget paved the way for the removal of tax breaks for property investors, mortgage applications at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, and ANZ Group have fallen by at least 12%. This followed earlier this year's rise in borrowing costs, which dampened demand, and house prices in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne began to decline. Matt Comyn, CEO of Commonwealth Bank, Australia's largest bank, stated that the bank has not yet seen this deteriorating sentiment spread further to household spending and overall economic activity. However, with the Middle East conflict pushing up inflation and some businesses remaining cautious, housing credit growth is expected to slow further next year.

August 13th - The Pinglu Canal is nearing full navigation. A key project of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, the Pinglu Canal is the first canal project connecting the Yangtze River and the sea built since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has consistently prioritized ensuring the timely, safe, and high-quality completion and opening of the canal by September, coordinating efforts at a high level and pushing forward with all its might. A special working group has been established to implement a list-based, meticulous, and closed-loop management system for tasks such as project completion and operational preparations, with weekly scheduling to ensure that all tasks are carried out in a coordinated manner and achieve tangible results. Systematic measures have been deployed to achieve the goal of "water in the canal, boats on the water, goods on the boats, and goods flowing in all directions."

On August 13th, Shanghai issued the "Shanghai Action Plan for Implementing the 'Several Measures on Further Promoting the Development of Private Investment'". The plan mentions providing computing power subsidies in accordance with laws and regulations to support private enterprises in renting intelligent computing resources for large-scale model research, training, and application. It also encourages universities, research institutions, and state-owned enterprises to use data storage and computing power resources built by various business entities, including private enterprises. The plan includes publishing and dynamically updating a public data open list to support private enterprises in the in-depth development and scenario-based utilization of specific public data. It promotes the issuance of "computing power vouchers," "model vouchers," and "corpus vouchers" to reduce the cost of using digital elements such as public data, computing power, models, and corpora. The plan also aims to cultivate benchmark enterprises and platform enterprises for urban digital transformation and guide private enterprises to participate in the construction and scenario operation of digital transformation projects in transportation, logistics, and public services. Finally, it encourages private enterprises to build demonstration projects for new infrastructure such as blockchain applications and large-scale robot applications.

On August 13, Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu stated at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on the theme of "Starting the 15th Five-Year Plan" that my country's ecological environment quality has continued to improve this year, with major indicators showing significant improvement. From January to July, the national concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) decreased by 1.8 micrograms per cubic meter year-on-year, a decrease of 6.2%; the proportion of days with good air quality increased by 3.9 percentage points year-on-year. The proportion of surface water sections with water quality of Class I to III reached 86.5%, an increase of 2.4 percentage points year-on-year.

On August 13th, Capital Economics economist Marcel Thieliant stated that while South Korea's GDP growth faces upside risks in the short term, the semiconductor-driven economic boom in South Korea may lose momentum within the next two years. The economist predicts that the US AI investment boom will cool down by 2028, potentially prompting South Korean chipmakers to begin cutting capital expenditures, given the highly cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry. Thieliant noted that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced an 800 trillion won investment plan to build a new chip manufacturing plant in southwestern South Korea, but a specific investment timeline has not yet been announced. He pointed out that in 2023, as the post-pandemic electronics boom reversed, SK Hynix cut its capital expenditures by two-thirds.

The yield on Japan's 30-year government bonds rose 1.0 basis point to 4.000%.

August 13th - According to foreign media citing sources familiar with the matter, Anthropic is in talks to acquire artificial intelligence startup Decart AI for approximately $6 billion. Sources indicate that the deal is not yet finalized and negotiations could fall through. If finalized, this would be Anthropic's largest known acquisition, coming at a time when the market is highly anticipating the company's IPO. Decart's software helps chips run more efficiently, reducing the cost of training AI models. According to one source, this technology could help Anthropic's existing infrastructure handle greater demand. Anthropic rarely makes large-scale acquisitions but has been investing heavily in computing power to develop new products and serve its customers.

The Hang Seng Index turned positive during the session, and the Hang Seng Tech Index is currently up 0.46%.

Futures Commentary by Everbright Futures: On August 12th, COMEX gold continued its rebound, approaching the 4500 level intraday, closing at $4469.0 per ounce, a gain of 0.63%. Domestic SHFE gold opened higher but closed lower in the night session, ending with a slight gain of 958.92 yuan per gram, a gain of 0.36%. 1. According to data released by the US Department of Labor on Wednesday evening, the US July CPI data showed a moderate cooling, rising 3.4% year-on-year, a slight decrease from the previous value of 3.5%, the lowest level since March; the core CPI year-on-year growth rate narrowed from 2.6% to 2.5%, both indicators were in line with market expectations. This alleviated market concerns about an unexpected rebound in inflation in the short term, but the July CPI and core CPI are still significantly higher than the 2% target, therefore, it cannot completely dispel market concerns about a Fed rate hike in September. Currently, the probability of a Fed rate hike in September remains around 45%. 1. With increasing divisions among Federal Reserve officials, the market is focused on Warsh's remarks. His speech at the global central bank conference at the end of August will be exceptionally important and may provide some guidance for the September interest rate decision. 2. Geopolitically, according to Reuters, Iran and the United States remain deeply divided on pushing for a permanent end to the Gulf War. Sources indicate that negotiations between the two sides to restore the interim agreement reached in June and establish a timetable for its implementation have made no progress. US President Trump stated on Wednesday that the US has "complete control" over the Strait of Hormuz. However, the Persian Gulf Straits Authority, established by Iran to manage the waterway, stated that the strait remains closed and will not reopen until Iran's conditions are accepted. In the short term, gold prices are gradually becoming less sensitive to geopolitical transactions, but the possibility of rising oil prices driving up inflation expectations remains. Attention should be paid to whether geopolitical tensions escalate further. 3. In the short term, the market's cooling expectations for a Fed rate hike may continue to drive gold prices higher. However, from the end of August to mid-September, the market will repeatedly price in whether the Fed will raise rates in September, requiring caution regarding the sustainability of the gold price rebound.

On August 13th, the "Opinions of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Guangdong Provincial People's Government on Further Leveraging the Leading Role of Standards to Promote High-Quality Economic and Social Development in Guangdong" were released. The Opinions propose to conduct standard planning for future industries. Research and planning of standard systems will be carried out in cutting-edge fields such as embodied intelligence, biomanufacturing, and quantum technology, exploring ways to guide the rapid iteration of leading and disruptive technologies through standardization. Pre-research work on standards will be strengthened to improve the scientific rigor and feasibility of standard development and shorten the cycle of transforming scientific and technological achievements into standards. Support will be given to the establishment of standardization technical organizations for future industries to promote the development and implementation of key standards.

On August 13th, the highest 7-day annualized yield of Tencent Wealth Management's "Current Account +" was 1.0610%, and the lowest was 0.6990%. The highest 7-day annualized yield of WeChat Pay's "Lingqian Tong" was 1.0020%, and the lowest was 0.9020%. The highest 7-day annualized yield of Alipay's "Yu'ebao" was 1.0090%, and the lowest was 1.9010%.

As of 09:30 Beijing time, New York gold futures rose 0.20%, New York silver futures rose 0.40%, and New York copper futures fell 0.69%.

On Thursday, August 13, the Hang Seng Index opened down 152.1 points, or 0.6%, at 25,288.07; the Hang Seng Tech Index opened down 13.98 points, or 0.29%, at 4,762.46; the H-share Index opened down 45.39 points, or 0.54%, at 8,400.88; and the Red Chip Index opened down 13.65 points, or 0.33%, at 4,142.45.

Market news: Anthropic is reportedly set to acquire artificial intelligence startup Decart for $6 billion.

On August 13th, Lu Weibing, Partner and President of Xiaomi Group, announced that the Xiaomi Surge OS 4 Beta version is about to be released. Instead of a launch event, the company will focus on continuous user feedback to optimize the experience. Recruitment for the first batch of Beta version devices will begin at 11:00 AM today on the Xiaomi Community.

Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Kent: We need to focus on historical average inflation data to concentrate on monthly CPI reports rather than quarterly data.