A-Share Trading Spotlight: Seven Broker Desks Top ¥100 Billion as Funds Favor Chip and Commercial Space Sectors

Highlights

Activity on the A-share market has surged this year, with year-to-date turnover reaching about ¥46.544 trillion as of September 30. Broker trading desks featured on the market’s leaderboard show where major funds moved: seven desks each recorded more than ¥100 billion in leaderboard turnover. Leading broker desks showed concentrated buying interest in storage chips and commercial space stocks, while several foreign broker desks also ranked among the top contributors.

Sentiment Analysis

• The overall tone of the data-driven market review is cautiously optimistic. Trading volumes and leaderboard activity indicate strong participation from both domestic and foreign broker desks, signaling robust liquidity and active institutional engagement. Sentiment intensity is moderately positive, reflecting investor interest in technology and space-related sectors amid broader market momentum.

Article Text

This year’s A-share market showed notably high trading activity. According to Wind data, year-to-date turnover across the A-share market amounted to approximately ¥46.544 trillion as of the close on September 30. Among indicators that help reveal where major capital is flowing, the leaderboard ranking of broker trading desks (as compiled by Wind) highlighted several desks with exceptionally large turnover figures. These rankings provide a window into which firms and sectors attracted concentrated buying and selling from institutional and retail participants.

At the top of the leaderboard by turnover is the Guotai Haitong headquarters desk, which reported year-to-date leaderboard turnover of ¥321.272 billion, ranking first among all broker desks. In the top 100 desks by turnover, Guotai Haitong placed 19 individual desks, the highest count of any securities firm. Overall, Wind’s tally shows 7,749 broker desks appearing on the leaderboard 59,700 times this year, generating total leaderboard turnover of about ¥35,500 billion. The top 100 desks accounted for roughly ¥26,900 billion of that total, representing about 75.77% of the full amount for the 7,749 desks.

Notably, seven desks surpassed the ¥100 billion threshold in leaderboard turnover year-to-date. Besides Guotai Haitong’s headquarters desk, other high-ranking desks include Citic Securities’ Shanghai branch with ¥213.898 billion and Kaiyuan Securities’ Xi’an Taihua Road desk with ¥116.737 billion. The list also features several foreign broker desks with strong leaderboard presence: Goldman Sachs (China) — Shanghai Pudong Century Avenue desk reported ¥258.225 billion; UBS Securities’ Shanghai Huayuan Shiqiao Road desk recorded ¥177.405 billion; and JPMorgan Chase (China) — Shanghai Yincheng Middle Road desk exceeded ¥115.496 billion. These figures underline active foreign institutional participation in the A-share trading landscape.

China International Capital Corporation’s Shanghai branch also placed among the top desks with ¥113.979 billion in leaderboard turnover. Other notable desks within the top ten include Guotai Haitong’s Wuhan Ziyang East Road desk, Guosen Securities’ Zhejiang Internet branch, and East Money Securities’ Lhasa Financial City South Ring Road desk. The concentration of turnover among a relatively small group of desks reinforces the central role institutional desks play in daily liquidity and price discovery on the A-share market.

Examining how many desks from each broker firm made the top-100 leaderboard, Guotai Haitong led the pack with 19 desks — a clear indicator of the firm’s broad retail and institutional connectivity. East Money Securities, Citic Securities, and Huatai Securities each had eight desks in the top 100. Kaiyuan Securities, China Galaxy Securities, and GF Securities had four desks apiece. Several other firms, including Guosen Securities, CSC Financial, East Asia Qianhai Securities, Guolian Minsheng Securities, Huaxin Securities, and Orient Securities, recorded three desks in the top 100.

Sector-level patterns in leaderboard trading show a marked preference for certain tech-oriented themes. Among the top-10-turnover desks’ top-three buy targets, storage chip and commercial space concept stocks were the most frequently bought sectors this year. Notably, Gigadevice Semiconductor (Zhaoyi Innovation) appeared five times among top-three buys across these top desks — the most frequent occurrence. Yangtze Memory and Shenjian Co. each appeared four times, signaling concentrated interest in memory and chip-related names.

Analysts suggest the sector bias aligns with accelerating capital expenditures across the domestic AI industry. Increased spending on computing infrastructure and related hardware tends to benefit upstream and midstream links in the AI supply chain. As one broker observed, rising CapEx and the selection of models that balance performance and cost are driving higher utilization rates of compute resources. The recommendation is to monitor segments of the AI supply chain such as semiconductor equipment, chips, memory, optical communications, servers, AIDC, and cloud services, where demand is likely to expand.

Another brokerage note emphasized opportunities created by persistent overseas AI CapEx that outpaces expectations. This trend supports demand for optical modules, fiber and cable, and server components. With the customization of chips becoming more prevalent, the use of optical modules is expected to grow. Meanwhile, the commercialization of domestic large language models and the acceleration of localized compute capacity create momentum for the domestic compute and data-center supply chain.

In summary, the leaderboard data for A-share broker desks this year highlights concentrated trading by a handful of large desks, strong participation from both domestic and foreign brokers, and a sector tilt toward storage chips and commercial space plays. These patterns point to where capital is flowing and which parts of the market may see continued investor focus. Market watchers and investors may use these insights to inform sector-level research and portfolio positioning as AI-driven CapEx and related technology demand continue to evolve.

Key Insights Table