{
  "id": 6886292,
  "title": "How AI tools are reshaping stock trading, investment research in China",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/12/how-ai-tools-are-reshaping-stock-trading-investment-research-in-china",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-12T08:00:10.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "SCMP Business",
    "slug": "scmp-business",
    "url": "https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3367211/how-ai-tools-are-reshaping-stock-trading-investment-research-china"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Artificial intelligence is transforming the way stock trading and investment research are conducted in China. For quantitative trader Ryan Lei, AI tools have replaced the need to spend days writing code and sifting through historical data. Utilizing Futu’s AI agents, Lei conducted research on past technology initial public offerings, leading to a profitable short position that earned him several thousand US dollars. Lei highlighted how AI can vastly reduce the time required for workloads that previously took days or weeks.\n\nBroader adoption of AI in the industry is evident in Hong Kong. Futu Securities, a prominent online broker, introduced an AI-powered feature named \"expert mode\" in July. This feature enables clients to conduct research and place orders using natural language instructions. After its launch, daily queries to Futu’s AI surged by around 50% in August, with more than half of the inquiries focused on individual-stock analysis, including fundamental analysis, earnings, and technical trends. Quantitative strategies also gained prominence as a significant use case.\n\nOutside mainland China, AI is being integrated into the tools used by US brokerages like Robinhood and Webull, primarily catering to individual investors. Futu Securities launched its \"expert mode\" feature in July, allowing clients to research investments and place orders through natural language instructions. Queries to Futu’s AI jumped about 50% month-over-month after the feature’s introduction, with most users focusing on individual-stock analysis, corporate fundamentals, earnings, and technical trends.\n\nIn mainland China, regulations restrict retail investors from receiving stock recommendations from unlicensed individuals or entities. As a result, AI tools are mainly employed for information gathering, data analysis, and monitoring stock prices. When the South China Morning Post sought stock recommendations from Doubao, ByteDance’s popular AI chatbot, it emphasized the importance of individual accountability and provided general advice such as using idle funds and evaluating stocks based on corporate fundamentals. Nonetheless, AI is quickly being embraced by the investment and financial community, with over 80% of mainland Chinese brokerages having integrated AI into their trading applications. These tools assist investors in processing and analyzing data, and leading brokerages are advancing AI integration into research, development, and the replacement of manual tasks like data collection, processing, and report translations.\n\nFor China’s 250 million individual investors, AI can help them capitalize on the country’s highly volatile stock market. Jacky Jia, a 48-year-old investor in Shanghai, has realized a return of approximately 5% from stock picking this year. He relies on Doubao and Baidu’s Ernie chatbot for analyzing financial results, business prospects, and conducting technical analysis on stock resistance levels. Jia acknowledges that AI can be incorrect at times and that human decisions are necessary; however, he believes AI excels at gathering information. Jia’s tech-heavy portfolio has outperformed the benchmark CSI 300 Index, which has declined by over 2% this year. Lei, the quantitative trader, has integrated AI into nearly every stage of his team’s workflow, from data collection and analysis to strategy generation and coding. However, he maintains that executing trades still requires human oversight, as quantitative investing demands a rigorous approach, and AI inherently carries an element of randomness.",
  "summary": "When Ryan Lei has an investment idea, he no longer has to spend days writing code and trawling through historical data to corroborate it. The 27-year-old quantitative trader in Hong Kong now delegates much of the grunt work to artificial intelligence. For a recent bet tied to a major technology initial public offering, Lei deployed Futu’s AI agents to collect data on similar listings over the…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}