MSX Q1 Wrap-up & Q2 Target Outlook: Focus on the U.S. Stock Main Trend, Precise Stock Selection Methodology

Original | Odaily Star Daily Report（@OdailyChina）

_Author | Qin Xiaofeng（__@QinXiaofeng 888 _）

In the just-ended first quarter, the crypto market’s performance was sluggish. Affected by heightened geopolitical tensions (such as the Iran conflict), macro uncertainty, and a decline in risk appetite, Bitcoin fell from roughly $87.5k at the start of the year to about $66.7k, a drop of about 23%. This marked the worst opening quarter since 2018. Other altcoins fared even worse. Aside from the continued growth of traditional asset tokenization and the AI sector, the market narrative as a whole also fell into a lull.

By contrast, the U.S. stock market seems to follow a different script. Even though all “Magnificent Seven” names dropped in double digits, Microsoft plunged 23%—its worst quarter since 2008—but the “money-making effect” did not disappear. Some hot sectors rotated quickly and delivered solid results. These high-quality assets were listed on the first day on the decentralized RWA trading platform Maitong MSX.

According to data, in Q1 2026, the MSX platform launched 39 new U.S.-stock tokenized assets, spanning individual U.S. stocks, sector ETFs, and macro instruments. The coverage follows five main lines: defense and aerospace, energy and resources, AI hardware, optical communications, and regional allocation. Judging by the results, this batch of assets performed impressively overall. As of the time of publication, out of the 39 assets, only 1 recorded negative returns (CRDO.M, -7.81%), and the rest were all positive. Among them, there are 4 assets with year-to-date gains exceeding 100%: AXTI.M (+318.59%), AAOI.M (+174.70%), LITE.M (+117.58%), and LWLG.M (+108.95%). All of them cluster in the AI hardware and optical communications main lines. In addition, there are 7 assets with gains exceeding 50%, accounting for nearly one-fifth.

On the evening of April 2, Odaily Star Daily invited Frank, a researcher from the Maitong MSX Research Institute, to review MSX Maitong’s Q1 performance and take a forward look at the Q2 assets to be listed, helping listeners grasp the U.S. stock main lines and pick stocks accurately.

Odaily Star Daily: MSX launched 39 new assets in Q1, and 38 of them had positive returns, with an average gain of 37.6%. Such a win rate is quite rare in the current choppy market. So what’s the core stock-picking framework behind this “straight-A student” performance sheet?

Frank: To be honest, I want to first correct one phrasing: Q1 was not “range-bound.” It was a genuine sell-off in the true sense.

Throughout the quarter, the S&P 500 (-4%) and the Nasdaq (-7%) were not just moving sideways—they were solidly moving downward. Pressure was especially clear in weighty tech stocks. Names like Microsoft, Tesla, Meta, Google, Nvidia, Amazon, and Apple—these core assets—generally saw pullbacks of varying degrees, and many even broke below the 200-day line.

In other words, the backdrop to the Maitong MSX scorecard—“39 assets listed, 38 with positive returns, and 8 with gains over 50%”—was that the broader market was falling and valuation compression was being inflicted on large caps.

If we break down the logic behind these results, candidly, nailing the timing is definitely one factor. Some of the listing timing points indeed fell right around the eve of the launch. But beyond luck, more important is that Maitong MSX has always followed a relatively stable principle in stock selection:

We don’t touch stocks that look like they have a lot of upside but whose industry direction isn’t clear, and we don’t bet on when large-cap blue chips will hit the bottom. By comparison, we’d rather find small- and mid-cap assets where the industry trend is clear, the capital transmission chain is transparent, and earnings are likely to be gradually realized.

Put simply, we’re not betting on whether a big direction will suddenly reverse. We dig deeper along the industry chain with the strongest certainty. Whoever is securing orders, whoever is receiving capital expenditures, and whoever truly benefits from industry expansion—that’s who we focus on.

More directly still, we’re not gambling on whether some grand narrative will suddenly reverse. We dig deeper along the industry chain with the strongest certainty. Whoever is securing orders, whoever is receiving capital expenditures, and whoever truly benefits in industry expansion is more likely to enter Maitong MSX’s observation and listing scope. And because of that, even in an environment where the index and large-cap weights are under overall pressure, we’re still able to produce a relatively impressive “straight-A student” Q1 performance sheet.

Odaily Star Daily: You categorize your Q1 newly listed assets into five main lines: AI hardware, optical communications, energy and resources, defense and aerospace, and regional allocation tools. How were these five main lines identified and established as “tradable directions” at the beginning of the quarter? Are there any quantitative or macro indicators to support them?

Frank: Actually, these five lines weren’t “planned” out at the beginning of the quarter. More accurately, they gradually emerged through continuous tracking of industry developments, financial report data, and market anomalies.

Maitong MSX’s Maitong Research team has a core daily task: continuously monitor big-tech companies’ financial reports, Capex guidance, industry-chain data, and the latest hot narrative and capital-movement-driven sectors.

For example, when Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon keep increasing AI infrastructure-related capital expenditures, these numbers in the financial reports may look like cold budgets—but fundamentally, they will transmit down the supply chain: to chips, to optical modules, to power equipment, and to the heat dissipation and testing stages.

So rather than saying we’re making macro calls, we’re more like tracking where capital flows and how industry realization happens. Because the real money big tech spends often has more explanatory power than many abstract macro indicators—PMI, interest-rate expectations, and macro definitions are certainly important. But the most solid signals are the genuine dollars: contracts signed, orders placed, and capacity expansion started.

On that basis, we further distinguish which companies in these sectors have truly received orders, and where revenue and profits are beginning to show up—versus which are merely concept-first, where sentiment is doing the pushing.

As for energy and resources, and defense and aerospace, their driving forces and AI industry chain relationships aren’t exactly the same. They lean more toward policy, geopolitics, and cycle logic. But in essence, they still fit Maitong MSX’s same set of screening standards: first check whether the driver is real, then whether the benefits are specific, and finally whether tradability is actually established.

Odaily Star Daily: Among them, AI hardware and optical communications became the strongest two main lines in Q1. At what time did you confirm that these two lines offered “systemic opportunities” rather than short-term trading themes?

Frank: For the AI hardware line, our research institute actually began paying attention as early as last Q2 and Q3. At that stage, almost everyone’s focus in the market was on Nvidia. But Maitong MSX started looking downstream and upstream of the supply chain earlier—figuring out who is doing packaging, who is doing thermal management, who is doing power management, and who is taking on more specialized supporting demand.

Because of a simple reason: Nvidia’s market cap is already in the tens of trillions. While the certainty is high, the upside elasticity is limited. Meanwhile, its Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers are still in the early stage of a performance surge. Within that are two kinds of transmission: one is the real transmission of orders, revenue, and profit along the industry chain; the other is the rotation transmission driven by market attention, capital preference, and narrative heat. The first determines fundamentals, and the second determines valuation re-rating. And both require time.

The confirmation timing for optical communications comes later—roughly between last Q4 and this January. The key turning point comes after the big-tech Q3 and Q4 earnings reports roll in and results become clearer. Capex guidance becomes increasingly aggressive one after another. Once you add up those figures, you realize that when data centers need to expand and compute density needs to increase, the demand for the infrastructure connecting these compute nodes—optical modules, optical fiber, switching, and interconnect—won’t just be “possibly there.” It’s real and tangible.

So when Maitong MSX judges whether a line has systemic opportunities, the core standard has never been whether the concept is “hot.” It’s whether there are genuine orders transmitting along that industry chain, whether real money is flowing, and whether those orders are getting stuck in critical links—and whether this is already reflected in revenue growth.

Only when those conditions are met, it’s not a short-term hype theme. It becomes a systemic opportunity worth ongoing allocation and continued listings. If it’s just telling a story without substance, we typically don’t touch it.

Odaily Star Daily: By contrast, gains for defense and aerospace and for regional allocation tools aren’t that standout, but they’re still included in the system. How do you evaluate their real value within the portfolio?

Frank: The fact that their gains aren’t outstanding actually shows that their role wasn’t originally “leading the charge.”

A mature platform-style product logic can’t put all exposures on high-elasticity sectors. For instance, if the user’s holdings are entirely in AI hardware and optical communications names, then in backtests they would likely feel especially comfortable in Q1. But once the main lines undergo a pullback, they’d be extremely passive—like that time you just saw an article about Cathie Wood. Her investment style is very aggressive. Even though she’s investing in the secondary market, she follows that underlying VC-style logic to invest aggressively.

This easily becomes a double-edged sword. When you nail the left side, it can surge extremely hard—like the tech bull run in the 2020–2021 period under the backdrop of big rate cuts and easing. That’s what boosted Cathie Wood to be hailed as the “Female Buffett,” and assets under management at one point reached $59 billion. But when it falls, it’s just as brutal—now it has dropped by 70%, with billions of dollars evaporated…

At the end of the day, high elasticity is an advantage. But if there’s no structural hedging and diversification, it will also turn into a double-edged sword.

So the value of defense and aerospace, and regional allocation tools, lies in providing “exposure in different directions.” After all, defense and aerospace has its own independent drivers, with very low correlation to the AI cycle—geopolitical game dynamics intensifying, and defense budgets across countries increasing—these are logic that’s completely out of sync with the tech cycle. Regional allocation tools are more tool-like in nature—for example, allowing users to conveniently configure certain exposures in non-U.S. markets.

These assets may not be intended to contribute the maximum upside. But they allow users to build a more complete and more resilient portfolio structure on the Maitong MSX platform. We’re not building a platform that only gives users the things most likely to go up. We need to provide enough configuration tools—enough and usable—so users can handle different market environments.

This is also a point Maitong MSX has consistently maintained in its listing system: there should be both offensive elasticity and structural completeness.

Odaily Star Daily: The Q1 listing cadence clearly shows a phased progression: January focuses on the macro underlying framework, February digs deeper into AI infrastructure, and March supplements tools and materials. How do you understand this dynamic and reactive mechanism? Is this cadence the result of active design, or does it dynamically adjust in response to market sentiment and capital flows?

Frank: Both, but if we must assign weights, the dynamic adjustment matters more.

January leans toward the macro framework because at the start of the year, the first heat comes from clues related to energy, resources, and geopolitics—those are also the directions the market responds to first. In February, as large-tech earnings reports land one after another and Capex data keeps coming in above expectations, we can be more confident about digging deeper into the AI infrastructure’s sub-segments—who makes optical modules, who makes liquid cooling, who provides power support, and which companies have truly received the expansion-related order flow from that logic.

In March, the focus on tools and materials is more because the core main-line stocks have already run for a wave of action. Capital naturally starts searching for peripheral links that haven’t been priced adequately, for catch-up logic, and for beneficiaries at relatively lower levels. Combined with catalysts landing—such as GTC and large industry conferences in optical communications—the market’s attention can further broaden from the leaders to supporting and application layers.

So you can understand Maitong MSX’s listing cadence as: big-picture directions come with forward-looking judgments, but what exactly gets listed each month, how many, and which category goes first—those progress dynamically with the industry data landing rhythm and market capital preferences.

It isn’t a monthly plan made on the spur of the moment. It’s more like a mechanism of “when signals arrive, we move forward.” That’s also why Maitong MSX’s listings don’t feel mechanical—they feel like continuous high-frequency interaction with the market.

Odaily Star Daily: In an environment where global liquidity is tightening, the risk-adjusted value of U.S. stocks versus Crypto is being reassessed. Do you think this “one of two” capital trend will continue in Q2?

Frank: Altcoins really have entered “the sage’s time.” Over the past two years, there were too many stocks in U.S. markets that doubled over a few months or even jumped ten-plus times. For example, LITE that was launched in Q1 doubled in just a short one or two months.

So I think it’s not entirely “one of two” in a simplistic sense. It’s that capital is reassigning priorities. Over the past two years, Crypto users have gone through a clear learning curve—moving from pure MEME and pure on-chain speculation, gradually to paying attention to the macro, to the Federal Reserve, and to big-tech earnings reports.

Once this kind of cognition upgrade happens, it’s not reversible. When they find that there are opportunities in U.S. stocks with higher certainty and relatively more controllable volatility, part of their positions naturally allocates over.

Will Q2 continue? I think it’s likely—possibly even accelerating. The reason is simple: the Crypto market currently lacks new large-scale narratives, on-chain activity is declining, while in U.S. stocks, the AI industry’s earnings realization cycle is only just starting. Smart money will move toward places with higher certainty.

Based on this trend view, Maitong MSX has recently arranged a content campaign called “U.S. Stock University Learning.” (If you’re interested, on the official site under the Maitong section you can find the “Beginner & Education” entry.) Its goal is to help users with Crypto backgrounds understand the basics of U.S. stocks—how to read earnings reports, how to interpret valuations, and how to analyze the industry chain—so they can systematically rebuild the foundational abilities of “reading earnings reports, reading valuations, and reading the industry chain.”

This content isn’t just about spreading the word. It’s because we truly saw a change in user needs: people don’t want to “give up Crypto.” They just want to allocate capital to more efficient, more profitable directions under the current market environment. So they do need to learn U.S. stocks and actively add a new arsenal to themselves.

That change is the trend that deserves more attention.

Odaily Star Daily: After security tokenization lands, the “entry barrier” for retail participation in U.S. stocks is lowering. How do you think this will change the future retail structure in U.S. stocks?

Frank: The most straightforward change is that the barrier has lowered, so those who come in will also increase.

In the past, for an Asian retail investor to participate in U.S. stocks, they often had to go through a series of frictions: opening an account with a traditional broker, depositing and withdrawing funds, account systems, minimum capital requirements, and more. But after security tokenization gradually takes hold, users can participate in related assets through lighter-weight on-chain methods, and holdings can be more flexible and more fragmented.

In essence, this isn’t just moving the trading interface onto the chain. It’s unlocking a group of new users who were previously blocked out by infrastructure-level entry barriers.

In terms of structural change, we at the Maitong MSX research institute believe two trends are fairly clear.

First, the share of retail investors in Asia-Pacific and emerging markets will rise. In the past, they weren’t without demand. They were blocked by channels, costs, and process constraints. Once these constraints are weakened, incremental users will naturally come in.

Second, the way this next batch of users trades will likely be more driven by “industry themes,” rather than passive index allocation in the traditional sense. These users are naturally accustomed to sector thinking, narrative thinking, and theme-investing thinking. In Crypto they track new narratives and chase new tracks. In a tokenized securities market, they likely won’t just buy an index and then lie low long-term. Instead, they’ll actively seek more elastic sub-sector opportunities within the industry chain.

This point is actually highly aligned with Maitong MSX’s asset screening logic. We’re not building a generalized entry point that only provides large-cap market tools. We’re working to build a theme-based, structure-based trading platform that’s easier for the next generation of on-chain users to understand and operate.

In other words, security tokenization changes not only “how you buy,” but also “who buys, what they buy, and why they buy.”

Odaily Star Daily: At the starting point of Q2, how do you view the continuity of current U.S. stock main lines and the risk of switching? Will AI hardware and optical communications still be the core of the offensive? Are there any new main lines entering Maitong MSX’s listing vision?

Frank: I think the AI narrative will most likely continue, but its form is already changing.

In Q1, the market began to move away from the single-minded model of “as long as Nvidia goes up, that’s the AI trade.” It started to look at, after AI infrastructure expansion, who truly benefits from the incremental gains. That means AI hardware and optical communications will still be the core offensive directions in Q2. However, the market may shift from “broad-based rallies across the board” toward “segmented selection and filtering.”

That is to say, the direction may not weaken, but the difficulty of stock selection will rise noticeably. In the future, the competition won’t just be whether AI exposure exists—it will be about who is positioned in the more critical links and who can realize benefits faster.

Besides that, there are two directions we at Maitong MSX research institute think are worth focusing on.

The first is aerospace and aviation. This isn’t exactly a completely new main line, but once Q2 arrives, its certainty is higher than in Q1. The reason is that the geopolitical environment is still evolving, defense budgets and the landing schedule for related orders are becoming clearer, and the earnings visibility of some sub-companies is increasing.

Maitong MSX recently caught this trend sharply and listed several small- and mid-cap commercial aviation assets ahead of time. They generally saw double-digit gains. Especially in the past couple of days when the overall market was weak, they still managed to deliver relatively independent performance. This already indicates that this direction has value for continued observation and positioning.

Second is the software SaaS sector, which was “mispriced due to sentiment” in Q1. In Q1, software stocks were often beaten down with a one-size-fits-all move. The market first uses risk appetite to price, and then distinguishes fundamentals. But within that group, there will definitely be some companies with high customer retention, healthy cash flows, and clear competitive moats. They were simply dragged down together because sentiment in the sector was under pressure. Once those assets enter a valuation repair phase, the upside elasticity can be quite substantial.

So our understanding of Maitong MSX’s Q2 is roughly: the main lines are still there, but the style shifts from “spraying broadly” to “deep filtering.” We’ll keep seizing high-certainty main lines like AI hardware and optical communications, while also starting to look for new structural opportunities in directions like aerospace and aviation, and software repair.

Odaily Star Daily: Under the current macro backdrop (interest-rate path, geopolitical environment, earnings cycle), do you prefer offensive assets, or tool-type allocation instruments? How do you balance upside elasticity with defense?

Frank: I think the key to this question isn’t simply answering whether it’s more offensive or more defensive. It’s about how to understand the macro environment at this stage.

• First, on the interest-rate path, the market’s expectations for rate cuts have been revised multiple times. So strategies that build too much on the assumption that “at some point, rate cuts are guaranteed” can actually be dangerous;
• Second, geopolitical-level uncertainty remains relatively high;
• Third, on the earnings cycle: large tech’s capital expenditures are still expanding, but the pace of realization on the revenue side hasn’t fully caught up. This means the market will increasingly care about “when the money spent turns into real profits”;

So under this backdrop, Maitong MSX is not really about going all-in on offense or all-in on defense. It’s about attacking with defense.

Concretely, the core position will still be prioritized on the AI infrastructure chain, because those companies have more real orders and an earnings growth logic supporting them. At the same time, we’ll retain some defensive exposures that are less correlated with the tech cycle—such as energy, defense and aerospace, and a certain proportion of tool-type allocation assets.

This is also the overall new platform thinking of Maitong MSX: we won’t put all our resources into high-elasticity offensive bets. Instead, we continuously add some defensive and tool-like assets so that, in different market environments, users can always find appropriate response tools.

In the end, the truly durable long-term system isn’t about hitting the most aggressive main line at one specific period. It’s about always being able to find a balance among offensiveness, certainty, and portfolio stability. This Q1 performance sheet is, in essence, a stage-by-stage embodiment of that logic.