Chinese markets and industry headlines on February 3 reflected a country juggling a buoyant equity market, brisk post-New Year mobility, fresh aerospace milestones and platform-level adjustments to creator monetisation.
Domestic equity indices rallied broadly: the Shanghai Composite rose 1.3% while the Shenzhen Composite jumped 2.2%, with more than 4,800 stocks advancing as investors favoured sectors tied to commercial space, photovoltaics and semiconductors. The move came alongside a pronounced rebound in international gold prices — a near 6% one-day gain to roughly $4,938.94 an ounce per financial-data services — which rekindled appetite for mining and precious-metals stocks in Hong Kong.
On the mobility front, state transport authorities recorded an estimated 187.91 million cross-regional trips on the first day of the 2026 Spring Festival travel rush, a 13% increase from the same point in 2025. The rebound in population movement underlines resilience in domestic consumption and services after years of pandemic disruptions, and it will shape demand patterns for transport, retail and hospitality in the coming weeks.
China's aerospace-industrial complex delivered two items of forward momentum. CASIC's institute (the 11th Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation) reported the first flight of the Rainbow YH-1000S, billed as the world's first hybrid-propulsion unmanned transport aircraft; the prototype carries a high-power hybrid powertrain co-developed with a new-energy vehicle firm and promises shorter takeoff, higher payload and longer range. Separately, private launcher Dongfang Space said its mid-to-large liquid, reusable rocket "Gravity-2" is on track for a mid-2026 maiden launch, signalling intensifying competition in commercial orbital logistics and constellation deployment.
In housing policy, Fujian provincial authorities issued measures to stabilise the property market, encouraging jurisdictions to deploy shared-ownership schemes, 'housing coupons' for inventory disposal and targeted subsidies for talent and multi-child families. The guidance is symptomatic of a wider, pragmatic choreography between provincial governments and Beijing to manage excess housing stock and shore up demand without broad-based fiscal largesse.
On platforms and creator economics, Douyin (TikTok's Chinese sibling) announced it will discontinue its paid collections feature from February 5, a product-iteration move intended to funnel paid creators toward the platform's paid-video tools and an 'upgrade' incentive scheme. ByteDance frames the change as a routine product update, but it raises questions about how Chinese platforms reorganise monetisation levers for creators and the commercial calculus for independent publishers.
Corporate frictions and market rumours added friction to the day. A retail-executive disappearance story about GaoXin Retail's CEO circulated online and prompted contradictory company responses; Cambricon, a leading AI-chip designer, issued a formal denial of market-rumour claims after a sharp intraday swing. Elsewhere, a high-profile restaurant chain and a Shenzhen mall were negotiating after an abrupt shop shutdown drew public attention — a reminder that reputational and lease disputes can quickly escalate on social media.
Taken together, the day's items sketch a Chinese economy in transition: investors are rewarding hardware plays tied to space, energy transition and semiconductors, consumption is reviving with the travel rush, and regulators and platforms are actively reshaping market structure and policy tools. The domestic policy tilt toward targeted housing interventions and the private-sector dynamism in aerospace suggest Beijing's current approach mixes market-driven innovation with selective state facilitation, even as volatility-prone rumours and platform product changes underscore persistent information and execution risks.