Why is it that even after the clear signals, the stock market is being pushed up, but many people still don't believe that a slow bull market is coming?

What you think of as ‘pulling the stock market up’ is actually saving the market; what the country sees as ‘pulling the stock market up’ is changing the anchor—this is a national-level shift from land finance to equity finance, while you are still using K-line technical analysis to judge a country’s balance sheet reconstruction. [Taoguba]
Last month, at a closed-door strategy meeting at a leading brokerage, I heard a piece of data that left me silent for an entire night: By the end of 2025, the total market value of various equity assets held by local governments (including shares of listed companies, industry fund shares, and shares of local financial control platforms) will exceed the land transfer income for that year for the first time. What does this mean? It means that the cycle of “selling land - infrastructure - real estate” over the past thirty years is being replaced by a new paradigm of “holding shares - securitization - capital appreciation.”

Most people are still stuck in the perception that “the stock market is just a casino,” using three K-lines to judge a top-down national strategy.
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1. The true meaning of transparency: This is China’s modern version of the “financial revolution.”**

Why is the ‘pulling up the stock market’ so transparent? Because this time, the logic of top-level design is different from any past instances.

The 2023 Central Financial Work Conference stated that “finance is the lifeblood of the national economy,” the new “Nine National Policies” in 2024 emphasized “the people’s nature of the capital market,” and in 2025, the Financial Regulatory Bureau will raise the upper limit of insurance fund equity investments from 45% to 50%—these are not isolated policies, but rather a complete, top-down financial resource reallocation system.

A friend of mine who used to work in a regulatory department was transferred last year to head a state-owned capital operation company in a province. He told me something that left a deep impression: "In the past, we assessed local state-owned asset platforms based on debt ratios, financing costs, and the progress of resolving hidden debts. Now the assessment indicators have changed—asset securitization rate, market value management effectiveness, and return on state-owned capital."
The weight of this statement is comparable to when the State Council established the land auction system as the main method of land transfer in 2003. At that time, no one realized that the era of “land finance” had begun, but looking back, it was the first time local governments in China had their own “printing press.” Now, this printing press is shifting from “land” to “equity.”

2. The national team is doing something unprecedented in the history of A-shares: systematically revaluing China’s core assets.

Many people are still asking whether the national team has entered the market, unaware that the national team has transformed from “firefighters” to “strategic investors.”

I gathered a set of data, as of March 20, 2026:

· Huijin Group: holds A-share market value of about 3.2 trillion, an increase of 87% from the end of 2023
· State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission: through tools like central enterprise innovation-driven ETFs and central enterprise structural adjustment ETFs, actually controls over 800 billion of A-share circulating market value
· Social Security Fund: The newly entrusted investment scale in 2025 reached a historical high, and for the first time explicitly required managers to “increase the allocation of undervalued high-dividend central enterprises”
· Insurance funds: In just January and February of 2026, the net buying scale through ETFs reached 1.3 times that of the entire year of 2024
These funds share a common characteristic: they generally do not sell after buying, and the targets are highly concentrated in undervalued central enterprises, high-dividend banks, and stable cash flow public utility companies. This is not trading behavior; it is position-building behavior—laying out pricing power for China’s core assets over the next ten or twenty years.

Do you think they are “protecting the market”? What they are doing is: using national credit as an anchor, reclaiming the pricing power of a batch of China’s best state-owned assets from foreign capital, speculative capital, and quantitative funds back to themselves.

3. The resonance between political cycles and market cycles: Why is 2026 a key year?

2026 is a key year for drafting the “14th Five-Year Plan” and the first complete year for the new round of fiscal and taxation system reforms. The political significance of this time point has not been understood by most people in the financial circle.

I’ve been tracking a rarely noticed indicator: the changing uses of local government special bond funds.

In 2023, the proportion of special bond funds used for “revitalizing existing assets” was less than 5%. In 2024, this proportion rose to 18%. By 2025, it soared to 37%. What is “revitalizing existing assets”? Simply put, it means packaging highways, water plants, industrial parks, and even idle office buildings owned by local governments into REITs or incorporating them into listed companies to achieve asset securitization.
And what is the prerequisite for asset securitization? A stable and upward valuation environment in the secondary market. If the stock market keeps falling, REITs cannot be issued, state-owned assets cannot exit, and equity finance is just an empty phrase.

So, you can understand this round of “pulling up the stock market” as a critical move in a larger game—it is not the end but a means. The state needs the stock market to perform well, not for you to make money, but to complete a thrilling leap from “debt-driven growth” to “asset-driven growth.”

4. Why is “not believing” actually the most concerning political signal?

If you look at it from the national level, the fact that “many people do not believe in a slow bull market” is actually a problem that deserves more attention than stock market fluctuations.

Expectation management is one of the core capabilities of modern national governance. When the central bank, the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Regulatory Bureau, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Huijin, Guoxin, social security, and insurance funds—all the “national team” forces you can think of—are using real money and continuous policies to send the same signal, but the market remains skeptical, it essentially indicates one issue: the trauma to market confidence over the past few years is deeper than we imagine.

But precisely this “depth” constitutes the largest expectation gap currently.

A friend of mine working in a provincial financial bureau privately shared a statement with me, essentially saying: their province launched a “special action for improving the quality of listed companies” at the end of last year, aiming to increase the market value of state-controlled listed companies in the jurisdiction by 50% in three years. I asked how they planned to do this. He said five words: “actual controllers get involved.” Then he listed three points: First, the market value assessment weight for provincial state-owned enterprise leaders was raised to 40%; second, forced repurchases were initiated for undervalued companies; third, direct adjustments to management for companies that have not distributed dividends for a long time.

This is not “window guidance”; it is market value management driven by administrative assessment. When a provincial party secretary starts to have the market value rankings of every state-controlled listed company in the jurisdiction on his desk, do you still doubt whether a “slow bull” will come?
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5. The thrilling leap from “land finance” to “equity finance”: Which side are you on?**

I am often asked a question: “You say a slow bull market has arrived, so why isn’t my stock rising?”

The answer is simple: because your stock is not on the asset list that the state wants to revalue.

What does the state want to revalue? Those core assets with stable cash flows, industrial barriers, state-owned backgrounds, and dividend capabilities, but which have been long undervalued by the market. These assets have been abandoned by the market over the past few years due to “no story” and “no imagination,” with valuations dropping to historical lows. What the national team is doing is re-pricing this batch of assets.

As for those speculative stocks, concept stocks, and micro-cap stocks driven by liquidity—sorry, they are not part of this round of “equity finance” narrative framework. They may get a boost when market sentiment rises, but that is just the overflow effect of rising tides, not the engine of a main upward trend.

6. Finally, a possibly politically incorrect statement

I have been in financial media for over a decade and have seen too many people interpret the market through “conspiracy theories” and too many people using “technical analysis” to predict tops and bottoms. But I increasingly feel that in a market like A-shares, where national will is deeply embedded, the most effective analysis framework is actually **political economy—**understanding what the state wants, where funds are flowing, and who will benefit from policy dividends.

If this round of “slow bull” really takes shape, it will not be the kind of crazy bull market you remember where everyone benefits. It will be an exceptionally picky bull—only carrying assets that align with the national strategic direction upwards, while leaving most retail investors behind to continue complaining, “Why is the index rising and I’m not making money?”

Until one day, when the index stands at a position that no one can ignore, those who were left behind will suddenly realize—that round of transparency was indeed the last opportunity to get on board.

But by then, the chips for core assets will no longer be at that price.

I am not advising you to go all in right now. I am simply stating a fact I see: when the state starts to bind its balance sheet with the stock market, betting that the stock market won’t do well is essentially betting on the failure of this country’s transformation.

You may not believe in a slow bull.
But you better believe that this time, the state has more patience than you. If you’re very interested, feel free to message me; everyone is welcome to exchange ideas.
(Note: The above content is only a personal investment record and does not constitute investment advice. The stock market has risks; please proceed with caution.)