How should we view the A-share market performance on April 7, 2025?

【Answer 1】 Two major events occurred on Monday: U.S.-China trade war tariffs and the sanctioning of DuPont. The antitrust investigation into DuPont China triggered a butterfly effect in the A-share market: Who is carving up the 'cake' of multinational giants? I. The capital logic behind DuPont’s stock plunge On the evening of April 4, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation launched an antitrust investigation into DuPont China—news that sent shockwaves through the capital markets. By the close of U.S. trading, DuPont (DD) shares had plummeted 12.75%, wiping out over $10 billion in market value. This event acted like a boulder dropped into the A-share pond—not only shaking the market position of foreign chemical giants but also sending ripples across sectors including semiconductor materials and environmental technology. From a financial perspective, DuPont China occupies a pivotal role within its global operations. In 2024, DuPont China’s semiconductor materials business accounted for 21% of its global revenue, with domestic market shares exceeding 70% for key products such as CMP polishing pads and photoresists. The antitrust probe may force contraction of its core businesses—while domestic firms are accelerating to fill the resulting market void via a dual strategy of 'technological substitution + policy incentives.' II. The 'domestic substitution feast' in the semiconductor materials sector 1. CMP Polishing Pads: Dinglong Co., Ltd.’s 'comeback story' DuPont’s monopoly in CMP polishing pads directly threatened China’s chip industry security. As the only domestic company mastering the full production process, Dinglong Co., Ltd. (300054) has achieved monthly sales of over 30,000 polishing pads; its Q3 2024 revenue surged 90% year-on-year. Its Wuhan facility’s annual capacity will expand to 480,000 units by 2025, potentially lifting its market share from 10% to 25%. More notably, Dinglong has achieved full self-sufficiency in critical raw materials—including prepolymers and microspheres—effectively breaking DuPont’s supply-chain blockade. 2. Photoresists: Jingrui Electronic Materials and Nanjing University Optoelectronics’ 'dual-leader rivalry' DuPont’s extensive patent portfolio in photoresists once severely constrained domestic players. Jingrui Electronic Materials (300655) has achieved large-scale production of i-line photoresists and now supplies top-tier wafer fabs including SMIC and ChangXin Memory; its 2024 market share rose to 15%. Meanwhile, Nanjing University Optoelectronics (300346) developed ArF photoresists supported by China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund—the first domestically produced high-end photoresist to pass customer validation. With full capacity coming online in 2025, it aims to capture 10% of the market. 3. Semiconductor Packaging Materials: Qingyun New Materials’ path to becoming an 'invisible champion' Unlisted Qingyun New Materials’ flash-spinning ultra-material Kunlun™ has already replaced DuPont’s Tyvek® in medical packaging, capturing 12% of the global market. Its Nantong base boasts 15,000 tons of annual capacity, generating over RMB 1 billion in revenue in 2024—making it the world’s second-largest supplier after DuPont. This 'unicorn' holds 56 core patents and is actively challenging DuPont’s dominance in semiconductor packaging materials. III. 'Ecosystem restructuring' in environmental technology 1. Water Treatment Technology: Beijing OriginWater’s 'membrane-based breakthrough' DuPont’s long-standing monopoly in China’s water treatment market is being challenged by PFAS contamination issues.

Who is constraining TSMC and NVIDIA’s production capacity? Semiconductor advanced materials leaders are emerging as new favorites among institutional investors.

【Answer 2】 In RockFlow’s research and investment team’s view, within the 2026 semiconductor investment landscape, certain core leaders—though not directly selling chips—control critical consumables, formulations, and processes essential to advanced nodes and advanced packaging. Their value lies in their irreplaceable position at the foundational level of the supply chain. Entegris (ENTG): The 'Purification Gatekeeper' for Advanced Processes At the 2nm node and beyond, cleanroom requirements have evolved from 'dust-free environments' to 'atomic-level control.' Even a single nanoscale metallic impurity can destroy transistor structures on wafers. ENTG’s core value stems precisely from this extreme purity demand. Filtration and purification constitute its most stable business foundation. Photoresists, electronic specialty gases, and ultra-pure chemical liquids all require high-precision filtration during transport and use. As process nodes advance further, allowable impurity levels continue dropping—raising wafer fabs’ demands for filter performance, reliability, and replacement frequency. This means ENTG’s revenue growth isn’t solely tied to wafer fab capacity expansion—it also benefits from rising material value per wafer. Moreover, ENTG’s precursor business is tightly coupled with advanced device architectures. In atomic layer deposition (ALD), specialized chemical precursors determine whether thin films can grow uniformly and stably. Entering the GAA (gate-all-around) era—with more complex transistor geometries—places even higher demands on molecular stability and reaction control of deposition materials. ENTG’s leadership in this domain positions it not merely as a consumables supplier, but increasingly as a key participant in advanced process ecosystems. Embedded supplier relationships further enhance ENTG’s customer stickiness. Wafer manufacturing is extremely cautious about switching materials. Once TSMC, Intel, or Samsung finalize specifications for a given filtration system, chemical delivery setup, or chemical formulation during R&D, they rarely change them post-volume production—since any substitution risks introducing new defects. This path dependency grants ENTG strong cyclical resilience. Coherent (COHR): The 'Thermal Management & Data Transmission Master' at the Physical Limits COHR is an easily underestimated electronic component company underpinning AI infrastructure. It participates both in SiC substrate development and in deepening expertise in compound semiconductors such as InP and GaAs. If AI chip competition centers on raw compute power, COHR addresses two more fundamental challenges: how to convert energy efficiently—and how to transmit data at high speed. SiC substrates represent a key growth vector. COHR ranks among the earliest manufacturers to achieve mass production of 8-inch SiC wafers. As the industry migrates from 6-inch to 8-inch substrates, whoever achieves stable yield improvements gains a decisive cost advantage. In recent years, market attention toward SiC has focused largely on electric vehicles. Yet from a 2026 vantage point, AI data centers, industrial power supplies, grid equipment, and charging infrastructure may prove far more resilient demand drivers. Optical communication materials support AI data center expansion. As AI cluster scale grows, inter-server data transmission pressure surges dramatically. Rising demand for 800G and 1.6T optical modules further elevates the importance of photonic materials like indium phosphide (InP).

Curated Wealth Partners LLC Sells 61,918 Shares of DuPont de Nemours, Inc. $DD

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Curated Wealth Partners LLC reduced its DuPont stake by 84.5%, selling 61,918 shares while the chemical giant posted strong quarterly earnings exceeding analyst expectations.

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