Four typhoons are churning simultaneously over the northwest Pacific and South China Sea under the influence of El Nino, bringing sustained impacts to China's eastern and southern regions.
The active storms are Typhoon Saudel, Typhoon Narra, Typhoon Gaenari, and Monday-formed Typhoon Atsani, the 18th through 21st named storms of the year.
Meteorologists say Atsani may interact with Saudel and supply it with additional moisture, becoming a key factor shaping Saudel's track and intensity after it enters the East China Sea.
So far this year, 21 typhoons have formed in the region, nine more than the historical norm for the same period. The unusually high count is closely tied to the prevailing El Nino conditions, which tend to suppress Atlantic hurricane formation while making western Pacific typhoon activity more active, a pattern consistent with current observations, experts said.
China's Central Meteorological Observatory (CMA) expects the four storms to deliver a continuous period of impacts across east and south China. Authorities urge vigilance against secondary disasters from prolonged heavy rainfall and the combined effects of strong winds and accumulated precipitation.
Among the four typhoons, CMA warned that Typhoon Narra is expected to bring long-lasting impacts spanning across south China's Hainan Province, Guangdong Province, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with heavy rainfall likely to trigger flash floods, mudslides, landslides, as well as urban and farmland waterlogging. Typhoon Saudel, meanwhile, is forecast to directly affect China's eastern coast.
Four typhoons churn simultaneously under El Nino, threating east, south China
Chinese stock markets dropped on Monday, as AI and tech stocks continued to see-saw, according to China Global Television Network (CGTN) market analyst Timothy Pope.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 0.59 percent at 3,882.01 points, with the Shenzhen Component Index, which has more exposure to the tech sector, closing 2.13 percent lower at 13,794.29 points.
Trading volumes on the two indices rose with around 2.01 trillion yuan (about 296.28 billion U.S. dollars) traded on Monday, up from 1.88 trillion yuan (about 280 billion U.S. dollars) last Friday.
Traditional sectors such as precious metals, coal mining, and insurance led the gains, while bio-tech stocks were among the top decliners.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 3.21 percent to close at 3,431.89 points on Monday.
The STAR Composite Index, which tracks the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 3.10 percent lower on Monday at 1,896.16 points.
"The A-share markets seem locked in this cycle of rally and rout for those growth stocks, particularly in the AI and adjacent sectors. Today was very much on the rout side so, while the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.6 percent, we saw the Shenzhen Component down more than 2 percent, the ChiNext board was down 3.2 percent and the STAR 50 down 3.1 percent. Those last three are more exposed to the tech rally than the Shanghai Composite. The big losers as I said were AI hardware companies - Shenzhen Gongjin Electronics was down 10 percent, Zhongji Innolight fell more than 7 percent. But they weren't alone because the other big winning sector of the last few weeks - biotech - was in retreat today as well. Investors were rotating into gold and coal stocks as well, and agricultural stocks extended the food security trade rally that we saw at the end of last week. There were a number of stocks across those sectors, all of those were hitting the upper limits of trade today," said Pope.
Pope said the rest of the week will be dominated by earnings reports from some of China’s biggest companies.
"The rest of the week is going to be mostly about earnings. The end-of-August filing deadline is fast approaching. Friday will be a really big day on the earnings calendar. We've got BYD, PetroChina, Shenhua Energy and a lot of big banks as well. Earnings that we are going to see for ICBC, China Merchants Bank and others will give us an insight into how much pressure the big banks are under with their margins. BYD is also going to be an interesting one in light of the government's anti-involution campaign and its efforts to avert a bit of a race to the bottom in the EV sector. And before we get there, there are Nvidia results in the US on Wednesday which will doubtless impact every stock in the AI space," he said.
Chinese stock markets start week lower on AI volatility: analyst
