CITIC Securities says the latest Middle East oil-price shock is a second, larger shock after initial buffers were exhausted, not a repeat of the earlier, smaller move. Crowded trade structures differ materially between the two shocks, so market dynamics are unlikely to simply replay Q2. The war’s trajectory is increasingly unpredictable and the risk of prolonged conflict has risen, implying an inevitable near-term de-risking phase. However, volume, price and sentiment indicators show negative ne

CITIC Securities says the latest Middle East oil-price shock is a second, larger shock after initial buffers were exhausted, not a repeat of the earlier, smaller move. Crowded trade structures differ materially between the two shocks, so market dynamics are unlikely to simply replay Q2. The war’s trajectory is increasingly unpredictable and the risk of prolonged conflict has risen, implying an inevitable near-term de-risking phase. However, volume, price and sentiment indicators show negative news has been largely priced into near-term, extreme declines and the de-risking process is close to completion. CITIC sees a high probability of broad, rotation-led repair in August and remains constructive on three convergence trades: narrowing excess returns between AI-chain upstream hardware and price-rally names versus downstream platform companies; compression of the valuation discount for domestic non-AI industrials versus overseas peers; and convergence between tech and non-tech sectors.