Editor's note: Zhang Deyong is a research fellow at the National Academy of Economic Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN. It has been translated from Chinese and edited for brevity and clarity.

China's A-share market delivered its strongest annual performance in nearly 11 years in 2025. The SSE Composite Index surged 25.58 percent over the Year of Snake, the SZSE Component Index rose 38.84 percent, and the ChiNext Index led with an impressive gain of 58.73 percent. This outstanding performance has not only restored market confidence that had been dampened in recent years but also created an optimistic atmosphere for the market entering the Year of the Horse.

As 2026 marks the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), the policy stance has been clearly defined as "pursuing progress while ensuring stability and improving quality and efficiency". The fiscal policy will continue with a "more proactive" approach, while the monetary policy remains "moderately accommodative". The coordinated efforts of fiscal and monetary policy are laying a solid foundation of fundamentals for the capital market, which constitutes the underlying logic supporting a post-holiday strengthening of A-shares.

The Spring Festival holiday in the Year of the Horse has provided an excellent window for observing micro-level economic vitality. Unlike previous years, the 2026 Spring Festival bore a strong imprint of artificial intelligence. Humanoid robots, large AI models, and AI-generated imagery have not only turned the Spring Festival Gala stage into a showcase for technological achievements but have also became deeply integrated into people's daily lives. As generative AI continues to expand its applications across areas such as culture and tourism, education, healthcare, and industry, it is helping bridge the gap from concept to tangible performance. The deep integration of "technology + lifestyle" is profoundly reshaping household consumption behaviors and industrial development pathways. Enterprises engaged in related applications are likely to enter a period of rapid performance growth, while consumers' willingness to pay for "technology experiences" is fostering new interactions between consumption upgrading and technological progress, offering hope for the broad consumer sector to break free from the trap of "low-price, race-to-the-bottom" competition.

During the holiday period, China's consumer market flourished on both the supply and demand sides, providing a vivid prelude to consumption recovery in the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. High-frequency consumption-related indicators reveal a marked rebound across areas such as tourism and travel, catering and retail, box-office revenues, and duty-free shopping, with particularly impressive performance in service consumption. This has injected powerful momentum into efforts to improve and strengthen domestic circulation. Backed by the Spring Festival consumption data, the post-holiday recovery trend in the broad consumer sector may become clearer, with structural opportunities emerging around consumption upgrading and policy dividends.

Meanwhile, amid heightened risk-aversion sentiment and the rebalancing of global liquidity expectations, the precious metals sector is entering an allocation window. Its price center is likely to edge higher with shifting expectations for the pace of rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve, making it an important anchor for post-holiday capital positioning. International gold prices fluctuated sharply during the Spring Festival, an external market change that may create short-term trading opportunities in the domestic gold market after the holiday. As trading resumes in the domestic market, gold prices will likely move in step with global fluctuations, and violent short-term swings are inevitable. Over the longer term, however, the core investment logic underpinning the precious metals sector remains unchanged and continues to rest on solid fundamentals.

The spring market in the Year of the Horse is, on the whole, worth looking forward to, though uncertainties still exist. Risks such as shifts in US monetary policy, sharp corrections in US stocks, and escalating geopolitical tensions could spill over to the A-share market through global capital market linkages. In addition, some previously favored sectors have already reached relatively elevated valuations and may face correction pressure if performance falls short of expectations.

With all factors taken into account, China's A-share market in spring 2026 seems poised to extend the strong momentum seen in the Year of the Snake, supported by policy measures, ample capital, and event-driven catalysts. In particular, robotics, artificial intelligence, precious metals, and broad consumer sectors, aligned with the four core investment themes of the development of new quality productive forces, the advancement of technological transformation, safe-haven asset allocation, and the release of domestic demand, are likely to take turns leading the market higher after the holiday.

(Cover via VCG)