Shanghai Composite stumbles as Middle East turmoil fuels investor caution: analyst

Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.2 percent lower on Friday, as escalating tensions in the Middle East fueled investor caution and offset a brief recovery to the 4,000-point level, according to Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Chinese stocks closed lower on Friday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 1.24 percent to 3,957.05 points.

"Shanghai Composite might actually regain the 4,000 point level which it lost the other day - actually at one point the index did climb back to that level but it slipped back again before the close, and the index ended 1.2 percent lower. The Middle East war is looking like it could start to impact prices here more directly - although analysts are mostly agreed that China is among the better placed countries to withstand the economic shock generated by the war. That's naturally making investors more cautious - if factory gate prices are poised to rise thanks to input costs, it's going to put pressure on a lot of company profit margins - even more so if the war depresses global demand for Chinese products. That's naturally again generating some cautions. Today they were also assessing the central bank's decision to leave interest rates unchanged - although that was widely expected," he said.

The analyst also reported the surge of solar stocks, which highlights continued demand for Chinese renewable energy products despite broader geopolitical and economic headwinds.

"Every sector was broadly lower today with materials, tech and consumer stocks all getting hit pretty hard. The one big exception was solar stocks. Investors latched onto this one after a media report saying Tesla is looking to buy almost 3 billion U.S. dollars worth of solar equipment from Chinese companies including one company particular Suzhou Maxwell technologies. That one ended up more than nine percent higher after Reuters carried the story and the index as a whole was up around three percent," he said.

Shanghai Composite stumbles as Middle East turmoil fuels investor caution: analyst

The Tianzhou-9 cargo craft, tasked with carrying supplies for China's space station, undocked from the station combination at 16:34 Wednesday (Beijing Time) and switched to independent flight, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The cargo craft will re-enter the atmosphere in a controlled manner at an appropriate time. During the process, a small amount of debris that survives the ablation will fall into the designated safe waters, the CMSA said.

Tianzhou-9 was launched on July 15, 2025 from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan, and then docked with the orbiting Tiangong space station. It carried supplies including astronaut consumables for in-orbit stay, propellant and application experiment equipment.

China's Tianzhou-9 cargo craft undocks from space station combination