How to Trade After theChina-USJoint StatementSurprise? Huatai Research 15 May 2025│China (Mainland) HE Kang, PhDAnalystSAC No. S0570520080004SFC No. BRB318hekang@htsc.com+(86) 21 2897 2202 China-US joint statement issued, phase-one tariff talks exceeded market expectationsAccording to Xinhua News Agency, on 12 May Beijing time, China and the USreleased a joint statement following economic and trade talks in Geneva: 1) Of existing US tariffs on China, the 20pp fentanyl-related tariffs and 10pp of thereciprocal tariffs imposed on 2 Aprilare tobe retained, while the remaining 24pp of reciprocaltariffsare tobe suspended for 90days; all tariffs imposed on 8 and 9 Aprilare tobe removed; 2) Chinais tosuspend the 24pp tariffs on US goods for 90 days whileretaining the remaining 10pp tariffs, and also cancel any further planned tariff hikes.We believe the scale of tariff rollback inthis joint statement exceeded investor expectations, and could help lift the trading range of domestic equities.Lookingahead, although tariff policies remain uncertain, we expect the resumption of negotiations todrive a partial recovery inrisk premiums priced for escalated trade tensions. reward improving; short-term moderately positive, medium-term focus onRotation Accelerating, Ongoing Tradingon Internal Certainties As noted in our weekly reportpublished on13 May 2025, positivesurprises from China-US talks could lift risk appetite and offer recovery opportunities for export-related sectors. Backed byexpectations of meaningful progress in the negotiations, the A-share market opened higher and closed up on 12 May, led bypower equipment, machinery, autos, and electronics–largely validating our view. Following the joint statement, H-shares and A50futures extended gains and the RMB strengthened, suggesting the market hadnot fully priced in the upside surprise, in our view.We project risk appetite to rise further in the short term. WebelievemultipletailwindshaveimprovedA-sharewinratesrecently:1)On7May,authoritiesannounceda'comprehensive financial supportpackage to stabilize the market and expectations', with the scope and pace of RRR and rate cutsslightly exceeding investor expectations; statements related to quasi-stabilization funds may help anchor the market bottom, in ourview;2) China's April inflation and export data showed resilience; 3) Pressures from external uncertainties (eg, China-US tariffsand the India-Pakistan conflict) have moderated.On the capital front, we also observed positive signs:1) For domestic funds,margin financing balancesremained high last week, with active trading levels still near the upper bound of the 2018 range,reflecting relatively robust leveraged activity; ETF and industrial capital saw modest net outflows, but the scale was insufficient tocause material marginal impacts; 2) For foreign investors, there was a significant outflow post-Qingming holiday; by end-March,EPFR-tracked allocation-oriented funds had reduced A-share positions to levels near those of September 2024, indicating a lowallocation stance. However, passive inflows resumed last week. Should tariffs and other previous constraints on foreign capitalinflows ease, there could be room for foreign investors to increase their positions, in our view. On valuation upsidepotential, A-share risk premium is driven by both the domestic credit cycle and the USD cycle.Assuming the USD index fluctuates around 100 and the annualized growth of commodity property sales by GFA stays near–10%,we estimate the fair PE (TTM) for all-A shares at c. 21x vs the current19x.Dynamically, we observe that current macroconditions appear to lie between early April 2025(post-reciprocal tariff announcement)and early November 2024(pre-USelection), suggesting potential near-term support and resistance zones. With tariffs now rolled back to March consensus levels, weexpect A-share trading ranges to revert to those prior platforms.In terms of pace, a temporary rally is likely to unfold amid risingrisk appetite in the short term; however, medium-term trends still depend on fundamental improvement, in our view. While tariffrollback may lift the trading range, a sustained trend would require stronger domestic demand policies to underpin economicfundamentals. Tactically, we favor tech and export chains in the near term forimproving risk appetite, while medium-term focus shouldremain on internal certainties.Short-term upside momentum has strengthened. As we have previously recommended, a barbellstrategy favoring volatility (dividends + tech + domestic demand) should now marginally increase exposure to tech, includingsectors with intensive catalysts such as AI (new models launched by Alibaba, Tencent, DeepSeek, etc), robotics (benefiting fromthe World Humanoid Robot Games), and high-visibility demand plays like cloud computing. In the export chain, industries thathave yet to fully recover the 7 April gap include pharmaceuticals, power equipment, and electronics.However, as tarif