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The National Bureau of Statistics shows that from January to April, the country’s fixed-asset investment fell 1.6% year-on-year. After excluding real estate development investment, it grew 1.3% year-on-year, but that is 3.5 percentage points lower than the previous value. In April, it declined 2.36% month-on-month, marking two consecutive months of negative growth and indicating that investment momentum continues to weaken. According to a Caixin survey of 11 institutions, the average forecast for the growth rate is 1.7%, with a range of 1.4% to 2.4%.

As the Hong Kong luxury property market recovers, the government will increase the stamp duty on residential transactions valued over HKD 100 million from 4.25% to 6.5% starting February 26, 2026; for a transaction price of HKD 100 million, the buyer’s stamp duty will rise from HKD 4.25 million to HKD 6.5 million, an increase of HKD 2.25 million. In 2025, there were 262 such transactions with a total value of HKD 53.1 billion.

AI is breaking the market information cocoon, but volatility has not significantly decreased.
The reason is that after the narrowing of information gaps, the variables of price divergence shift to cognitive differences.
Data shows that after the release of ChatGPT, the dispersion of seller EPS forecasts for two representative stocks has significantly decreased, indicating that information layer differences are converging;
but during the same period, the 60-day realized volatility of the S&P 500 and the VIX median only slightly declined, without a significant reduction.
More importantly, the DSPX index rose by 30.6%, indicating that volatility has not disappeared, but has shifted from systemic to heterogeneous fluctuations.

This paper proposes understanding China's debt problem from the perspective of the balance sheet, using the accounting equation to reveal the fundamental differences between debt structure and the direct financing system.
By comparing the income statement perspective with the balance sheet perspective, it points out that traditional practices allocate expenses to the balance sheet through accruals/deferred items to smooth profits, while the balance sheet perspective can more intuitively reveal the causes and risks of debt.

Domestic prices continued to rise in April. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 1.2% year-on-year, expanding by 0.2 percentage points compared to March; the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 2.8% year-on-year, expanding again after a continuous decline, up 2.3 percentage points from March. Both indicators exceeded market expectations. A Caixin survey of 11 institutions showed that experts originally expected CPI to be around 0.8% and PPI around 1.5%, but both were significantly higher than expected.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced that the nationwide urban surveyed unemployment rate in April decreased month-on-month, but still remained higher than the same period last year. By age group, the unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds (excluding students) was 16.3%, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous month; the unemployment rates for the 25–29 and 30–59 age groups were 7.4% and 4.2%, respectively, each decreasing by 0.3 and 0.1 percentage points in the same month.

The impact of the Iran situation on the global supply chain and energy supply is beginning to show. In April, the added value of China's above-scale industrial output increased by 4.1% year-on-year in real terms, a decline of 1.6 percentage points from the previous month after excluding price factors; month-on-month, it only increased by 0.05%, significantly lower than last month.
Despite this, export delivery value reached a nearly four-year high, and exports remain resilient in industrial production.

Through a five-day visit to France, Belgium, and Switzerland and exchanges with political, business, and financial sectors, I deeply feel that Europe has a strong awareness of change. Politically, there is an emphasis on enhancing strategic autonomy to respond to unilateralism and great power competition; in economic and trade aspects, there is a pursuit of multilateral cooperation and risk diversification to improve resilience; industrial investment, especially in cutting-edge fields like AI, needs to shift from discussion to action, integrate resources, and catch up with the frontier. This trip also highlights the pragmatic cooperation and win-win potential between Hong Kong and Europe in trade, investment, and innovation technology. Macroeconomic, stock, bond, and corporate financial data can be obtained from the Caixin database.

Consumer goods retail continued to decline in April 2026, with the same period growth rate at only 0.2%, and the retail growth rate of consumer goods excluding automobiles dropped to 1.8%.
Seasonally adjusted month-on-month decrease of 0.48%, with negative growth for two consecutive months, post-Spring Festival consumption remained weak, affected by factors such as the slowdown of "trade-in for new" policies, the debt effect, and falling gold prices.

This article focuses on science popularization blogger Geng Tongxue's storytelling questioning the controversy caused by a prestigious university’s paper, questioning whether the motive for fact-checking is driven by false claims and whether there is institutional manipulation behind it, and mentions his termination of the MCN contract to prove his innocence. The author believes that academic fact-checking requires professional evidence and procedures, and does not need to be based on profit motives; truly effective correction requires external incentives and market mechanisms. The article cites an example of a top foreign journal that once published a fabricated Alzheimer’s disease paper that was eventually retracted.

On May 18, the National Railway Administration’s Railway Industry Science and Technology Innovation Base, established with support from Tongji University’s Key Laboratory for Station-City Integration, was unveiled and an Academic Committee was convened. Referring back to the “2018 guidance,” it emphasized that around high-speed rail stations, industry-city integration and station-city unification should be highlighted. Station-city integration is key for megacities to achieve green and high-quality development, but in practice there are institutional and mechanistic barriers. The author raises two questions: whether establishing the base can truly address and break through these barriers.

Caixin reports that Trump says the US-Iran negotiations are basically agreed upon, planning a two-step approach: first on regional ceasefire, unblocking the Strait of Hormuz, and gradually lifting maritime blockade and sanctions, with nuclear issues to be discussed afterward; another report warns that behind the Liu Shen Yu coal mine explosion, miners have not been paid for three months, and the investigation may reveal illegal mining.

Caixin NEI rose to 32.5 in April, indicating that the proportion of new economic investment increased to 32.5%, up 0.8 percentage points from the previous month.
The index components are labor, capital, and technology, with weights of 40%, 35%, and 25%, respectively.
This month's increase mainly comes from capital investment, which rose 3.2 to 44.8; labor decreased 0.4 to 21.3; technology investment decreased 0.4 to 33.3.
After weighting, the contributions of labor and technology to NEI are -0.2, -0.1, and +1.1 percentage points, respectively, showing a fluctuating upward trend since 2021.

Middle East conflicts and rising U.S. Treasury yields have led to a decline in overseas holdings of U.S. debt: in March, the total overseas holdings were $9.35 trillion, down $138.4 billion month-on-month, with official reserves decreasing by $108.7 billion, accounting for nearly 80% of the decline. Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others reduced their holdings, while the UK increased by about $3 billion. At the end of March, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 4.32%, up 40 basis points from the end of February, with bond prices approximately down 9%.

In EU investments in China, Germany typically accounts for about one-third, and companies are increasingly localizing, but uncertainties in China-U.S. and China-Europe relations, as well as factors like the Iran conflict, pose new challenges. The China-Germany Chamber of Commerce conducted a quick survey of over 200 members, and the results show that German companies are more optimistic about China's economy: 37% of respondents expect China's economy to improve in the next six months, an increase of 22 percentage points compared to the same period in 2025; the proportions expecting revenue and profit to grow are 42% and 29%, respectively, and plans for investment in China are significantly increasing.

As the 14th Five-Year Plan concludes and the 15th Five-Year Plan becomes a critical period for green and low-carbon transformation, taxation as a governance tool will transmit policy signals and guide resource allocation. Currently, green tax incentives mainly focus on new energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaics, covering industries that are asset-heavy and high energy-consuming, making it difficult for internet, financial, and other service-oriented companies to benefit. Continuing to adopt a solely asset-heavy approach will make it difficult to achieve comprehensive transformation. Green taxation should embody the dual economic principles of improving energy utilization efficiency and internalizing environmental externalities.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange will hold a listing review committee meeting on May 27 to review the IPO of Changxin Technology Group. If approved, it will pass the review.
The review process is as follows: the exchange prepares review documents based on the review opinions and submits them to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC); the CSRC decides whether to register within 20 working days after receiving the materials.

Government bond yields are jointly influenced by market liquidity and economic fundamentals, with liquidity having an additive effect on both direction and magnitude, becoming a source of change beyond the "anchor." Liquidity is divided into exogenous central bank operations and endogenous bank credit, both of which respond to changes in economic fundamentals. When the economy is performing well, endogenous liquidity increases, and funding rates rise; during economic downturns, endogenous liquidity decreases, and rates decline.

After U.S. Treasury yields rise, the market watches oil prices, inflation, and monetary policy, but decomposition shows that the resilience of the U.S. economy’s fundamentals has a greater role in driving yields; going forward, they may also be affected by new disturbances. After May 20, 10-year yields in the UK, Japan, the U.S., and other countries rose in sync: the UK 66bp, Japan 64bp, the U.S. 60bp, and the Eurozone also moved higher.