Chinese mainland shares closed higher on Monday, driven by renewed investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and confidence in China's semiconductor sector, according to a China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index went up 1.08 percent to close at 4,225.02 points, reclaiming the 4,200-point level, while the Shenzhen Component Index climbed 2.16 percent to 15,899.30 points.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, gained 3.50 percent to close at 3,928.97 points Monday.
Timothy Pope, an analyst for CGTN, recapped on the day's market developments from Shanghai, noting the strong performance of AI-related stocks which saw the indexes hit the highest levels for over a decade.
"Chinese equities really jumped again today as investors were rushing back to buy all things AI-related. The Shanghai Composite Index added a little more than one percent, but it closed at an almost 11-year high. The same was true for the ChiNext board and the Shenzhen Component Index as well. All of them are sitting at levels that we haven't seen since roughly the middle of June 2015," said Pope.
"The CSI Semiconductor Index, that one touched a record all time intra-day high today, although it did slip a little bit back off that, but it still closed up a whopping 6.3 percent. The IT sub index also hit a record high and it added 4.4 percent. So we had pretty much everything concerning AI from chip designers to rare earth metals producers -- all of that was gaining ground today. Analysts are talking up China's position on tech, chips especially. CITIC Securities had a note today saying that China's cost advantage in this area is only going to grow and that we'll see Chinese chip-related exports growing strongly, alongside global demand for AI computing," he said.
Pope also pointed to the significance of the upcoming visit to China by U.S. President Donald Trump, after a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed on Monday that Trump will pay a state visit from May 13 to 15 at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He said this is likely to have a significant impact on the direction of the stock market later this week.
"Investors are also going to be looking ahead to this week's meetings between presidents Xi and Trump in Beijing. That visit is really likely to dominate the second-half of the week. And today as well the market was also looking at the producer price index (PPI) where inflation was up the most since June 2022, but almost entirely because of the commodity price shock generated by the Iran war," said the analyst.
Chinese equities surge as investors flood into AI-related stocks: analyst
