International crude oil prices have surged significantly, impacting the market. It is not merely a matter of price increases for some upstream raw materials; there are now risks of supply shortages and disruptions, which are expected to significantly impact the entire chemical industry chain. Influenced by the sharp rise in international crude oil prices, major refineries in Shandong province uniformly suspended external quotations on March 9. In the LNG market, liquid plants including Shanxi Huaxin Qixian, Shanxi Huaxin Xiangyuan, Shanxi Huaxin Yuncheng, and Shanxi Fengxi Quanji also simultaneously halted quotations. Domestically, the PET raw material market has seen widespread suspensions of quotations across multiple regions. Spot reference prices in the three core regions of East China, South China, and North China are currently not being quoted. Regarding bottle-grade chips, major production areas including Jiangmen, Zhuhai, Zhejiang, Jiangyin, Yizheng, Anhui, Fujian, Sichuan, and Shanghai have all suspended external quotations. Beyond the domestic market, some international companies are also experiencing production halts or tight raw material supplies. On March 7, news emerged that Idemitsu Kosan, a major Japanese petrochemical company, notified its partners that if the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz persists, hindering raw material imports from the Middle East, its ethylene production facilities in Japan may be shut down. Internationally, ongoing geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East continue to disrupt the global phosphate fertilizer supply pattern. Major producers like Morocco's OCP have suspended quotations, further tightening export supplies. Overall, the current sharp surge in oil prices is transmitting from the energy sector through the entire chain—upstream chemicals, midstream manufacturing, and downstream consumption. Companies in multiple countries are experiencing order suspensions, quotation halts, production limitations, and even shutdowns. The global chemical industry is facing dual challenges of cost and supply. As China's bulk chemical products have reached an inflection point in both the capacity cycle and inventory cycle, a potential decline in overseas supply may help boost operating rates and lead a recovery in the prosperity of related domestic chemical products. Huatai Securities is focusing on sectors like oil refining, ethylene, acetic acid, MDI, and TDI. Related chemical sector concepts involve Hong Kong stocks such as SINOPEC CORP (00386), SINOPEC SSC (01033), SINOPEC SEG (02386), SHANGHAI PECHEM (00338), SINOPEC KANTONS (00934), CHINA SANJIANG (02198), and WUHAN YOUJI (02881).

WTI crude oil futures settled at $85.08 per barrel, a decline of 6.40%. Overnight, U.S. stocks closed higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 239.25 points to close at 47,740.8, a gain of 0.5%. The S&P 500 index increased by 55.97 points to close at 6,795.99, up 0.83%. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 308.27 points to close at 22,695.95, a rise of 1.38%. According to reports, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that the U.S. war with Iran could end very soon. Large-cap tech stocks generally rose, with ASML and AMD gaining over 5%, Intel and Broadcom up over 4%, and Nvidia and Google rising over 2%. Memory concept stocks surged, with SanDisk up over 11%, Western Digital gaining over 6%, and Micron Technology rising over 5%. Most popular U.S.-listed Chinese stocks advanced, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index up 1.76%. Kingsoft Cloud surged over 19%, while XPeng and Bilibili gained over 6%. Hong Kong Hang Seng Index ADRs also rose, calculated proportionally to close at 25,650.38 points, up 241.92 points or 0.95% from the Hong Kong close. The New York Mercantile Exchange WTI crude oil front-month contract fell by $5.82 to settle at $85.08 per barrel, a drop of 6.40%. COMEX gold front-month futures decreased by $10.00, or 0.19%, to $5,148.7 per ounce. COMEX silver front-month futures rose by $3.03, or 3.60%, to $87.345 per ounce.

U.S. President Donald Trump hinted that the U.S. conflict with Iran may conclude shortly. Reportedly, Trump stated in a telephone interview that he believes the war is largely over and that it is progressing much faster than his initial estimate of four to five weeks. He mentioned that Iran lacks a navy, communication systems, and an air force.

The disruption in natural gas supplies has ignited "substitution demand" for coal, driving coal prices to a one-year high of $150. With the sudden escalation of military conflict in the Middle East, the global energy supply chain faces severe challenges. Consequently, thermal coal prices have surged to their highest level in over a year. On Monday, the Asian benchmark Newcastle coal futures price jumped approximately 9.3%, touching the $150 per tonne mark, setting a new high since November 2024. Simultaneously, the European market reacted sharply, with Rotterdam coal prices rising about 13% to $119.50 per tonne on March 2, reaching a new 52-week high.

Lenovo Baiying, in collaboration with Meituan, has launched an exclusive OpenClaw remote deployment service. This innovative model, featuring "professional engineer proxy operation + full-process transparency," enables one-click configuration. The service now boasts nationwide coverage. Concurrently, Lenovo Baiying introduced the native OpenClaw-adapted AI terminal, the Lenovo Baiying NUC, integrating software, hardware, and service into a cohesive solution. This terminal allows for native OpenClaw adaptation and local Windows environment deployment within three minutes, requiring zero technical门槛.

Tencent has launched WorkBuddy, a new tool designed to create efficient office workflows. According to Tencent Cloud, the tool, nicknamed "Xiao Long Xia" (Little Lobster), is available without complex deployment. WorkBuddy integrates various practical functions, supporting document management, collaborative communication, and task tracking to help users easily handle diverse work scenarios. Tencent stated that WorkBuddy was launched to meet the modern office's demand for convenience and efficiency, aiding enterprises in improving overall work productivity. Users can immediately experience its convenient features by simply downloading the application. Enterprise WeChat officially notified enterprise administrators that integrating OpenClaw with intelligent robots can be achieved "in just 3 steps." Currently, major cloud service providers, large model developers, and OpenClaw ecosystem products—such as Tencent Cloud Lighthouse, Kimi, Minimax, EasyClaw, Coze, Lobster AI, uCloud, TCADP, Codebuddy, Huawei Cloud, and Baidu Intelligent Cloud—are progressively enabling support for accessing OpenClaw via Enterprise WeChat.

Following the sudden departure of Lin Junyan last week, Alibaba announced new management arrangements for its Qwen model. The Qwen model lead position will be temporarily managed by Alibaba Cloud CTO and Tongyi Lab head Zhou Jingren. He will delve into the resources required for model development, enhance collaboration efficiency across various stages, and ensure efficient model iteration. Liu Da Yiheng, responsible for Qwen pre-training, will concurrently manage the post-training and Coding teams. Liu Da Yiheng and other leaders of the Qwen model team will report to Zhou Jingren. This involves the Hong Kong stock Alibaba.

The Shanxi Provincial Development and Reform Commission recently issued a notice adjusting the province's coal power capacity price standard to 165 yuan per kilowatt-year, effective January 1, 2026. Other matters will continue to be implemented according to relevant existing notices.

Supply chain sources indicate that Apple has increased the preparation volume for its first foldable device, the iPhone Fold, by 20% compared to the original target. Apple is reportedly very confident about sales of the new device, set for release in the second half of the year. This represents a rare significant upward adjustment in preparation demand for a new Apple device in recent years. The foldable phone concept involves Hong Kong stock BYD Electronic (00285).

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (03750) announced its 2025 financial results. Operating revenue reached approximately 423.702 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.04%. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was about 72.201 billion yuan, up 42.28% year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was approximately 64.508 billion yuan, an increase of 43.37%. Basic earnings per share were 16.14 yuan. The company proposed a cash dividend of 69.57 yuan (pre-tax) per 10 shares. In 2025, the company's lithium-ion battery sales volume was 661 GWh, a growth of 39.16% year-on-year. Net profit was 72.2 billion yuan, up 42.28%. Sales volumes for power and energy storage batteries were 541 GWh and 121 GWh, respectively, with the company maintaining the leading global market share in both segments.

Asia Cement (China) (00743) released its annual results, reporting a turnaround to profit compared to the previous year's loss. For the year ended December 31, 2025, the group achieved revenue of 5.109 billion yuan, a decrease of 13.19% year-on-year. Profit attributable to owners of the company was 85.724 million yuan, compared to a loss of 264 million yuan in the same period last year. Earnings per share were 0.055 yuan. The board recommended a final dividend of 3 fen per share.

Regarding new share listings, Meige Intelligent (03268) saw its dark pool trading close up 0.14% at HK$28.9, compared to its IPO price of HK$28.86. Based on a board lot of 100 shares, this translates to a gain of HK$4 per lot before fees. The stock is scheduled to list in Hong Kong on Tuesday, March 10.

MiniMax-WP (00100) announced new "Lobster" skills: the launch of the Voice Maker voice model and the Music Maker music model. Based on deep encapsulation of MiniMax's Speech2.8 voice technology and Music 2.5+ music model, users can utilize the OpenClaw platform or MiniMax's MaxClaw to enable AI assistants with capabilities for custom voice tones, multilingual dubbing, and even creating complete songs and vocal humming demos. These skills are now available on ClawHub and support use within IM platforms like Feishu, Enterprise WeChat, and DingTalk. Last month, Minimax launched MaxClaw, a cloud-based AI assistant built on OpenClaw. MiniMax stated that users will be able to run OpenClaw directly on mobile devices, with all data synchronized in real-time with the web version, truly enabling multi-end collaboration. Separately, reports citing a benchmark test leaderboard shared by OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger showed MiniMax M2.1 in second place with a success rate of 93.6%. Morgan Stanley, in a latest research report, stated that the commercialization momentum of Chinese AI unicorn MiniMax far exceeds expectations—its Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR) surged from $100 million to $150 million in just two months, an increase of over 50%. Concurrently, M2 model token usage in February 2026 skyrocketed sixfold compared to December 2025, while the inference cost per token decreased significantly by over 50%.