Nearly 15% Drop! The "Moutai Curse" Hits the "Cold King." Is This Just the Beginning?
Author | Song Wanxin
Editor | Zhang Fan
There is a concept called the "Moutai Curse" in the A-share market, which means that once a company's stock price exceeds that of Kweichow Moutai, it will start to decline thereafter.
The latest challenger to the "Moutai Curse" is Cambricon. After its stock price soared tenfold over the past year, its intraday stock price reached 1,465 yuan on August 27, surpassing Moutai and becoming the king of A-share stocks. However, its glory was short-lived. Cambricon's reign as the "king of stocks" lasted only one day before its stock price started to fall. At yesterday's close, Cambricon tumbled 14.45%.
Concerns about the "Moutai Curse" have resurfaced. Will Cambricon become the next victim of the "Moutai Curse"?
Before Cambricon, no company's stock price had exceeded that of Moutai for eight years. Historically, 14 companies' stock prices have exceeded that of Moutai, and the time points of the surpassing were mainly concentrated around 2015 - this time point is highly symbolic, as it was not only the last major bull market period in the A-share market but also the eve of the burst of the mobile Internet bubble.
For these 14 companies and Cambricon, 36Kr reviewed and compared their historical price movements after surpassing Moutai.
01 Half of the new "kings of stocks" started to decline within a month
(Charting: 36Kr, Data source: Wind)
It can be found that, except for CSSC Holdings and Yanghe Brewery, whose stock prices remained rising one year after exceeding that of Moutai, the others all started to decline within a year.
Among the 14 companies, half started to decline within a month after becoming the "king of stocks", and among these seven companies, five were in a downward trend within a year, namely Gibit Networks, Chinese Online Education Group, Changchun High - tech Industries, Hepalink Group, and Century Dingli Technology.
For the new "king of stocks" companies concentrated around 2015, it can be found that they are all related to the mobile Internet sector, such as Storm Technology in Internet video, Anshuo Information Technology in Internet finance, and game company Gibit Networks. This truly reflects the rapid expansion of the mobile Internet bubble in the capital market during that period.
Specifically, Storm Technology's stock price reached a maximum of 327 yuan in 2015, surpassing Moutai's stock price in the same period, which was also the peak of the A-share bull market. From May 14, 2015, when it exceeded Moutai, to the end of May, the market's frenzy did not stop. Storm Technology's stock price continued to soar, mainly due to the last speculation of funds at the end of the bull market, which pushed its stock price to the peak.
Subsequently, the ChiNext bubble burst in June, and the stock market crash in 2015 hit. Storm Technology suffered a cliff - like decline.
On the company's operation level, since 2016, Storm Technology failed to successfully transform, and due to blind expansion, it consumed a large amount of funds. Coupled with problems such as performance losses and the imprisonment of the founder, the company's stock price continued to plummet, and its market value shrank significantly. Eventually, Storm Technology was delisted due to poor management and financial problems. Before delisting, its stock price was only 0.28 yuan, representing a 99% evaporation of market value compared to the 2015 peak.
After surpassing Moutai, All - Ton Education maintained an upward trend for a relatively long time and showed an upward trend for half a year, mainly relying on the "Internet +" concept, mergers and acquisitions, and its position as the leading company in online education to maintain market sentiment.
In 2016, All - Ton Education became the largest education - related listed company in China by market value, with a dynamic price - earnings ratio of over 1,600 times. In the same period, New Oriental's total market value was only about 3.8 billion US dollars, and its price - earnings ratio was about 19 times. That year, All - Ton Education maintained its stock price and scale through a large number of mergers and acquisitions. According to the company's 2016 annual report, the company newly merged nine enterprises in that period.
The turning point occurred after the first - quarter report in 2017. All - Ton Education recorded its first loss in that quarter, and its stock price also fell accordingly, hitting a new low, only 15% of its peak value.
02 The average PE of the 14 companies was 232, while Cambricon's reached 514
It can be found that historically, companies' stock prices surpassing that of Moutai were all due to the speculation of a certain theme during the heyday of the mobile Internet, resulting in a short - term rise.
While experiencing the excessive speculation of themes, these companies at that time did not have fundamental performance support, resulting in their stock prices being seriously overvalued. Therefore, it was expected that their stock prices would plummet after the bull market when funds withdrew.
Ten years later, the soaring trend of Cambricon is happening during the frenzy of the AI market, which is extremely similar to the mobile Internet bubble. The domestic substitution chip theme led by Cambricon has become a hot topic in the secondary market under the combined effect of AI and geopolitics.
Similar to the panic about the mobile Internet bubble, Cambricon has also raised market concerns: Will the AI bubble burst in the short term?
It is certain that Cambricon is extremely overvalued. As can be seen from the above table data, the average PE of the 14 companies when they surpassed Moutai historically was 232, but Cambricon's was as high as 514.
Data shows that Cambricon's historical average rolling price - earnings ratio is 26 times that of the industry average, and at its highest, it was nearly 58 times that of the industry.
After its short - term stock price surge, Cambricon also issued a stock trading risk warning announcement on the evening of August 28, officially reminding investors that the stock price increase had significantly deviated from the fundamentals. As of the close on September 4, Cambricon tumbled 14.45%, with the stock price closing at 1,202 yuan, while on the same day, Moutai only fell slightly by 0.53%, with the stock price at 1,472.7 yuan.
Looking at the process of Cambricon becoming the "king of stocks", after its stock price reached a high of 1,465 yuan on August 27, it continued to rise to 1,587 yuan on the second trading day and has been falling ever since, which is very similar to the stock price trends of most companies that have encountered the "Moutai Curse".
However, for the A - share market as a whole, the increase in 2025 has not been as crazy as that in 2015. At the beginning of 2015, the A - share market was around 3,300 points and quickly soared to 5,178 points within the year, with an increase of 57%. From the beginning of this year to now, the A - share market has fluctuated upwards from around 3,150 points to around 3,800 points, with an increase of 21%.
It should also be noted that the sources of risks in 2015 and this year are different. The risk in 2015 came from within, that is, the collapse of leverage, while this year's risks mainly come from the outside, such as geopolitics, the global economic recession, and the slower - than - expected recovery of fundamentals. Obviously, compared with other companies, Cambricon is more directly and greatly affected by these three factors.
*Disclaimer:
The content of this article only represents the author's views.
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