Following the initial U.S.-Iran talks failing to reach a consensus, former President Trump announced a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, leading to rising crude oil prices and a slight pullback in spot gold. Today, April 13, the Huabao Nonferrous Metals ETF (159876), which holds leading companies in the nonferrous metals sector, traded near the waterline. Its intraday price touched a high of 0.46% but is currently down 0.46%. Despite market fluctuations, the daily K-line chart suggests the formation of an upward trend since the low point on March 23, potentially indicating a right-side signal of an upward movement from a low base.
Among the constituent stocks, Huayu Mining led gains, rising over 6%. Yahua Group and Guocheng Mining advanced more than 5%, while Tengyuan Cobalt and Shengxin Lithium followed with increases. Rare earth leaders China Northern Rare Earth and China Rare Earth rose over 1%, and Shenghe Resources gained nearly 1%. Conversely, Western Gold fell over 3%, with Hunan Gold and Chifeng Gold declining more than 2%, leading the losses among gold stocks and weighing on the index performance.
On the news front, on April 10, two rare earth giants, Baotou Steel and China Northern Rare Earth, announced price increases. The transaction price for rare earth concentrate has been raised for the seventh consecutive quarter since the fourth quarter of 2024. From the阶段性低点 of 16,741 yuan per ton in the third quarter of 2024 to the present, the price of rare earth concentrate has accumulated an increase of 22,063 yuan per ton, a surge of 131.79%. This means the price has more than doubled over the past year and a half.
Citic Securities pointed out that the growth rate of global rare earth supply is slowing, strengthening the logic of supply rigidity. Humanoid robots and the low-altitude economy are expected to become new growth drivers for rare earth permanent magnet demand. By 2026, the global rare earth supply-demand gap may continue to widen, providing long-term support for rare earth prices.
Huatai Securities is optimistic about the rebound opportunities in the oversold nonferrous metals sector. For gold, historical patterns show rapid rebounds often follow the end of geopolitical conflicts, and continued central bank purchases provide a floor for prices. For industrial metals, tight copper ore supply and domestic inventory drawdowns, alongside unpriced risks for aluminum capacity in the Middle East, maintain fundamental support. For minor metals, varieties like rare earths, tungsten, molybdenum, and cobalt are catalyzed by geopolitical tensions, with expectations for strategic reserves and military restocking strengthening. Their supply is highly concentrated domestically, making them hard to replace externally, thus highlighting their resilience and medium-term allocation value. The overall recovery opportunity after being oversold is worth active attention.
The Huabao Nonferrous Metals ETF (159876) and its feeder funds (Class A: 017140, Class C: 017141) track an index comprehensively covering sectors like copper, aluminum, gold, rare earths, and lithium, spanning different cycles such as precious metals (safe-haven), strategic metals (growth), and industrial metals (recovery). This full-category coverage allows for better capture of the sector's beta trends. Additionally, this ETF is a margin trading security, making it an efficient tool for a one-click allocation to the nonferrous metals sector.
As of the end of March, the Huabao Nonferrous Metals ETF (159876) had a latest size of 1.891 billion yuan, with an average daily turnover exceeding 100 million yuan over the past month. Among the three ETF products tracking the same underlying index in the market, it ranks first in both size and liquidity.
Note: The previous on-market abbreviation for the Huabao Nonferrous Metals ETF (159876) was Nonferrous Leaders ETF.