Since the beginning of July 2026, global technology assets have experienced intensified volatility and amplified market fluctuations. However, the hard technology sector has continued to attract capital inflows against the prevailing trend. The STAR Market, serving as a core stronghold for hard tech within the A-share market, has demonstrated notable resilience. According to Wind data, as of July 17, 2026, against the backdrop of a broader sector pullback, the Huatai-PineBridge STAR 50 ETF (588090) has seen cumulative net inflows of 1.547 billion yuan since July began. This underscores the market's recognition of the medium to long-term value of high-quality technology assets listed on the STAR Market.

Recent developments have seen a series of significant IPOs land on the STAR Market, with leading companies from two key sub-sectors listing in succession. This helps complete the puzzle of A-shares' core hard technology industrial chain and is expected to continuously enhance the quality of the market's core assets. Firstly, on July 16, ChangXin Technology, a domestic leader in memory chips, officially initiated its online and offline subscription, entering the final countdown to its listing. Secondly, on July 2, the China Securities Regulatory Commission officially approved the registration for Unitree Technology's initial public offering. The entire IPO review process took only 104 days, from acceptance on March 20, approval at a meeting on June 1, to registration taking effect on July 1. This sets a new record for the fastest review since the implementation of the STAR Market's pre-review mechanism, marking the imminent official listing of the A-share market's first "embodied AI" stock.

With the successive listings of these two globally competitive leaders, ChangXin Technology and Unitree Technology, the STAR Market is bolstering its presence in two critical hard tech fields: high-end DRAM manufacturing and embodied AI. This further refines the market's comprehensive AI industry chain layout and enriches its asset structure. The arrival of these major players is anticipated to reshape the valuation framework for A-share technology sectors, significantly enhancing the investment profile and industrial depth of the STAR Market's artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing tracks, potentially driving a revaluation of hard tech value.

The policy landscape continues to deliver substantial positive signals. On the evening of July 19, 2026, China Reform Holdings officially announced its firm confidence in the development prospects of the domestic capital market and its commitment to empowering technological innovation and high-quality development in central state-owned enterprises. It is reported that its subsidiary, China Reform Investment, has already utilized over 50 billion yuan from special relending facilities for share buybacks and increases, along with supporting funds, to stabilize the market. It will continue to effectively employ these special relending policy tools, supplemented by its own capital, to persistently increase holdings in core central SOE stocks, firmly safeguarding the stable operation baseline of the capital market and solidifying the foundation for the STAR Market's development.

Furthermore, this year marks the first anniversary of the implementation of the STAR Market's "1+6" reform package. A recent research report from CITIC Securities points out that, at this juncture, the reforms have progressed beyond the initial policy announcement phase into an ecosystem validation stage. Subsequent focus should be on medium-to-long-term trends such as profitability conversion capability and earnings realization capacity for ongoing verification and feedback. Looking at specific sectors, policy transmission across sub-sectors has shown a clear gradient. The biopharmaceutical sector has taken the lead in completing its validation phase, while artificial intelligence is accelerating its succession. This positive development momentum is propelling the STAR Market from being an "experimental field" towards truly becoming a "demonstration field."

The Huatai-PineBridge STAR 50 ETF (588090) closely tracks the STAR 50 Index. As one of the core representative broad-based indices for the STAR Market, this index selects 50 leading constituents based on market capitalization and liquidity, accurately reflecting the overall development trends of the market's top innovative companies. The index's sector allocation is sharply focused on hardcore technology, with the semiconductor industry holding a weight of 83.7%. It also strategically positions in high-growth sectors such as industrial automation equipment, photovoltaic equipment, medical devices, innovative pharmaceuticals, and high-end software development, covering core areas of the new economy with a pure hard tech focus and significant growth potential.

The manager of the Huatai-PineBridge STAR 50 ETF (588090) and its feeder funds (Class A 011610, Class C 011611), Huatai-PineBridge Fund Management, is one of China's first ETF managers. With over 19 years of deep expertise in index investment, it has developed transparent, convenient, and low-cost index tools for investors, such as the Huatai-PineBridge CSI 300 ETF (510300) and the Huatai-PineBridge A500 ETF (563360). As of the end of March 2026, the company's ETF products had generated cumulative profits exceeding 223.4 billion yuan for holders over the preceding two years, making it one of only three public fund management companies in the entire A-share market to achieve cumulative profits over 200 billion yuan during the same period.