The Federal Reserve decided at 2 a.m. Beijing time on July 30 to keep its federal funds rate target range unchanged between 3.5% and 3.75%. However, the meeting saw three dissenting votes, and the Fed Chair's press conference delivered a more hawkish policy signal. Disturbed by expectations of tightening global liquidity, the A-share market broadly continued its earlier correction during early trading today (July 30, 2026).

Despite the market downturn, the ETF market has seen net capital inflows, with the broad-based STAR Market index being the primary beneficiary. Wind data shows that the STAR 50 Index, leveraging its advantages in hard-tech exposure, concentration of industry leaders, and diversified individual stocks, has attracted net capital inflows over the first three trading days of this week (July 27-29, 2026). The cumulative capital inflow reached 13.992 billion yuan. Specifically, the STAR 50 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (588090) has seen cumulative capital additions of over 2.372 billion yuan since July, boosting its share count and fund size to 3.183 billion shares and 5.495 billion yuan respectively. Compared to the end of June, these figures represent increases of 63.23% and 24.60%. Notably, this ETF saw a significant volume spike yesterday (July 29), with a single-day trading volume of 896 million yuan, a massive sequential increase of over 197%.

Following recent volatile adjustments, the trading congestion and valuation levels of the technology sector have both moderated, allowing for the release of short-term trading risks. Considering that the fundamental logic for the long-term positive outlook of Chinese tech stocks has not changed, short-term fluctuations may have opened a window for medium-to-long-term positioning. It is understood that the STAR 50 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (588090) closely tracks the STAR 50 Index, one of the core, representative broad-based indices of the STAR Market. This index selects 50 core constituents with leading market capitalizations and superior liquidity within the sector, accurately reflecting the overall development of leading tech enterprises on the STAR Market. The index's sector allocation focuses heavily on hardcore technology, with the semiconductor industry weighting reaching 83.7%. It also strategically invests in high-growth sectors such as automation equipment, photovoltaic equipment, medical devices, innovative pharmaceuticals, and high-end software development. Covering core areas of the new economy, the index boasts a pure hard-tech profile and prominent growth potential, making it a quality tool for investors participating in China's long-term technology industry development opportunities.

On the news front, policy support for the STAR Market has intensified since July. Shanghai released a "20-point" plan for direct financing, expanding the fifth set of listing standards to frontier fields such as artificial intelligence, the low-altitude economy, controlled nuclear fusion, embodied intelligence, and quantum computing. Furthermore, at the 2026 Lujiazui Forum held from June 17-18, the China Securities Regulatory Commission clarified expanding the fifth set of standards to the AI field, actively supporting high-quality AI large-model companies in going public. This series of policies not only provides a favorable financing environment for technology enterprises but also underscores China's development logic centered on the technology industry.

Beyond policy signals, industry-level data more directly verifies the resilience of the technology sector. According to Wind data, as of July 29, 2026, 77 companies on the STAR Market had released their first-half 2026 performance forecasts. Among these, 49 companies anticipated profit increases, and 14 expected to turn profitable, resulting in a combined positive reporting rate of 81.82%. Alongside improving performance, many STAR Market companies and their major shareholders have demonstrated strong confidence in the companies' long-term development through share increases, buybacks, and extending lock-up periods.

Zhongtai Securities pointed out that from an industry trend perspective, the current AI industry trend has not weakened. The core driver of recent adjustments is market skepticism regarding the sustainability of AI capital expenditure. However, the revenue growth of the two global AI leaders remains strong. Furthermore, AI agents are rapidly expanding from code programming to non-code white-collar work scenarios such as office work, finance, law, and consulting, providing support for downstream demand. Therefore, capital expenditure expansion backed by positive returns is fundamentally different from unlimited spending. The essence of this downturn may be the liquidity risk from forced liquidation of leveraged funds, not a reversal in the AI industry's fundamentals.

The STAR 50 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (588090) and its feeder funds (A Class 011610, C Class 011611) are managed by Huatai-PineBridge Fund Management Co., Ltd., one of China's first batch of ETF managers with over 19 years of expertise in index investing. The firm offers transparent, easily tradable, and low-cost index tools for investors, including the CSI 300 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (510300) and the A500 ETF Huatai-PineBridge (563360). As of June 30, 2026, the company's ETFs have generated cumulative profits of over 180.6 billion yuan for holders in the past two years, making it one of only three public fund companies in the entire A-share market to achieve cumulative profits exceeding 160 billion yuan during that period.