8:00 36Kr Daily丨Trump buys Meta stocks; Sam's Club announces its plan to restrict the binding of family and friend cards; Doubao enables the function of paying for daily utilities such as water, electricity and gas.

Today's Hotspot Guide

• Anthropic is reportedly forming a dedicated team to liaise with 2028 presidential candidates
• A new round of price hikes has arrived in China's mobile phone market, with some models seeing a price increase of up to 1000 yuan
• Bilibili has filed applications for trademarks including JILIJILI
• Shantou, Guangdong takes the lead nationwide in launching the "Ciyuan Overseas Expansion Loan"
• UK university students will need to meet minimum standards to apply for loans

TOP 3 Major News

Trump Buys Meta Shares for Up to 25 Million U.S. Dollars

According to the latest financial disclosure documents, Trump purchased up to 25 million U.S. dollars worth of Meta shares on August 21, and Meta's stock price has risen by 32% cumulatively thereafter. According to CNBC analysis, Trump completed a total of 517 securities transactions in August, with the total transaction amount ranging from about 74.3 million U.S. dollars to 273.3 million U.S. dollars, including at least 44.2 million U.S. dollars of purchases and at least 30.1 million U.S. dollars of sales. The document also shows that he bought SpaceX senior unsecured bonds on August 18, with an amount between 1 million and 5 million U.S. dollars, a coupon rate of 5.35%, and a maturity in July 2031. The transaction happened two days before he signed the policy to expand the U.S. commercial space transportation. (Securities China)

Sam's Club Announces Proposed Restrictions on Family & Friend Card Binding, Staff Respond

On October 9, Sam's Club announced that it plans to update the Sam's Club Membership Charter, and is now publicly soliciting public opinions for the draft revision. The newly added clause of the revised Sam's Club Membership Charter stipulates that within 365 days from the date of the first activation of a Family & Friend Card, the real-name identity information associated with the said Family & Friend Card can only be used to activate Family & Friend Cards for no more than two individual primary card members, and only one Family & Friend Card for one individual primary card member can be activated each time. If no modification is made after the public comment period expires, the new regulation will take effect on October 16, 2026.

In response, Sam's Club staff explained that the above changes have no impact on primary card members, and the main affected group is users who hold Family & Friend Cards. When asked whether the above measure is aimed at cracking down on the resale of secondary membership cards, the customer service representative said that this is one of the purposes, "Purchasing membership cards on second-hand trading platforms may affect membership rights and interests afterwards, so we do need to update the membership charter." (CLS, Lanjing News)

Doubao Launches Daily Utility Payment Functions for Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Related Services

Recently, reporters found that users can complete daily utility payment operations for water, electricity, gas and other services via voice input or text typing in the Doubao App. Sources close to Doubao indicated that Doubao is gradually building service execution capabilities in daily life scenarios covering travel services, utility payment and other fields. Actual tests by reporters show that users can use this function after logging in with their Douyin accounts and completing the household number binding process. However, the availability of the payment function varies across different cities at present, and the payment service has not been fully connected nationwide. Before this year's National Day holiday, Doubao just announced the launch of multiple new services including flight ticket booking, train ticket purchase, ride-hailing and route navigation, and rolled out the exclusive entrance of "Use Doubao for Travel", covering four major scenarios: map navigation, transportation, hotel accommodation, food, entertainment and leisure. (National Business Daily)

Cutting-edge AI Frontiers

Anthropic Announces Ban on "Abusing" Its AI

It is reported that Anthropic has adjusted its AI usage policies to address new high-risk abusive behaviors. One of the most significant changes is the ban on "persistent and unnecessary abuse or cruel acts" toward Claude. The update notes that terminating conversations remains the "primary enforcement mechanism"; Anthropic did not comment on whether further enforcement measures such as potential user bans will be adopted. Anthropic stated that the new policy update "only applies to extreme scenarios where users repeatedly perform cruel acts against our models without any obvious purpose. This policy does not apply to common user dissatisfaction, rebuttals, dark creative themes, model testing and research and other scenarios." (Sina Finance)

Anthropic reportedly forms a dedicated team to liaise with 2028 US presidential candidates

According to reports, U.S. artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is launching a "presidential-level liaison" program targeting the 2028 general election, setting up an internal team to directly engage with U.S. presidential candidates from both major parties on AI-related issues, assist the company's senior management in formulating political strategies, and be responsible for operating the company's political funding programs. (Sina Finance)

Three Dismissed Security Researchers Release Joint Open Letter, OpenAI Responds

OpenAI stated in a post on the 8th that after completing an internal investigation, the company has ended its cooperation with three security researchers Jasmine, Mikita and Tomek, as they violated the relevant policies on handling sensitive information. OpenAI noted that the issues uncovered in the investigation go beyond what the three disclosed in the open letter, hence it sticks to the decision to terminate their employment. This move is not targeted at the AI safety concerns raised by the three or their expression of dissenting opinions. Internal security discussions and research debates have always been part of daily work, and the company actively encourages such practices. Meanwhile, OpenAI said it is pushing forward to finalize the cooperation agreement with a third-party security assessment institution, and will release the details in the coming weeks. (Yicai)

Meta is mired in a trust crisis, while its AI products are booming against the trend

Meta has been sued by multiple U.S. states for its products' high tendency to cause teenage addiction and harm mental health, resulting in huge accumulated fines and compensations. More than 80% of the American public has called for strengthened regulation. However, Meta's performance is on the rise, with its user scale and revenue growing year on year. Its AI agent Muse can independently complete complex long-cycle tasks. Only one month after its launch, its downloads exceeded 5 million, with weekly active users exceeding 3 million, and its growth rate outpaced that of ChatGPT in North America in the same period. Nevertheless, Muse needs to access a large amount of private data, which raises widespread concerns among users. Meta stated that it will launch a privacy virtual machine to ensure security. Industry insiders pointed out that whether the company can rebuild public trust may be the key to the success or failure of its AI transformation. (Huanqiu.com News)

Big Companies / Major Events

JAC Motors' market value has evaporated by more than 10 billion yuan in two days, and it hit the 10% downside limit immediately after the market opened on October 9

At the opening of the market on October 9, JAC Motors triggered the one-word downward limit. By the close of trading, its share price stood at 22.75 yuan per share, with a total market value of 512.82 billion yuan. Compared with the total market value of 619.22 billion yuan at the close of September 30, the company's total market value has shrunk by over 10 billion yuan in just two trading days. The drastic fluctuation in the capital market stems from a public opinion storm over product quality triggered by an extreme automotive evaluation video. On October 8, the test results from Dongchedi showed that the brake pedal brackets of three brand-new Zunjie V800 all fractured during continuous emergency braking. (The Beijing News)

iPhone 18 Pro Series Reportedly Cuts Component Production, Supply Chain Sources Respond: No Substantial Change in Total Order Volume

On October 9, media reports said that due to the skyrocketing cost of memory chips, Apple was forced to raise the price of its new iPhones, which further led to a drop in consumer demand. At present, Apple has notified some suppliers to reduce the component production of the newly launched iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. However, in response to the above production reduction rumors, people from the supply chain revealed that there has been no substantial change in the total volume of relevant orders for the time being. "Combined with the sales performance on Apple's official website, the estimated delivery time for most specifications and models of the iPhone 18 Pro Max is still 3 to 4 weeks." (National Business Daily)

Chinese smartphones are ushering in a new round of price hikes, with some models seeing a price increase of up to 1000 yuan

Starting from 00:00 on October 9, 2026, Huawei adjusted the suggested retail prices of the nova16 series: both nova16 and nova16 Pro are raised by 400 yuan, nova16 SE is raised by 200 yuan, and the channel pickup price is adjusted upward synchronously. On the same day, the prices of the entire Xiaomi 17 Ultra product line were raised, with a maximum increase of 1000 yuan: the starting price of the standard version rose from 6999 yuan to 7999 yuan, and the starting price of the higher-positioned Leica version rose from 7999 yuan to 8999 yuan. The pricing of all versions on sale on Xiaomi's official website has been fully adjusted. Since March this year, OPPO and vivo have successively adjusted the prices of their models on sale; on September 1, brands including Xiaomi and Honor followed up with a round of concentrated price adjustments, among which the price increase of the Xiaomi 17 series ranged from 200 yuan to 500 yuan, and the price increase of Honor Magic8 was in the range of 300 yuan to 500 yuan. (Jiemian News)

The ChiNext Index has fallen by more than 31% in 70 trading days, CITIC: Tech market rally may kick off in Q4

On October 9, the ChiNext Index once fell below the 3000-point mark, posting a drop of over 31% in the 70 trading days since June 25, 2026, hitting a new low since November 27, 2025. The research report from CITIC Securities states that the next round of tech market rally will most likely start in the fourth quarter of 2026, which still needs verification of three conditions: marginal reversal of interest rate hike expectations, consensus formed on new market narratives, and rebalancing of the capital side. It is recommended to prioritize structure over position allocation, and focus on structural opportunities including Hong Kong stock model iteration, internet platforms, hardware technology upgrading, and domestic semiconductor equipment. (Sina Finance)

U.S. Stock Market Close: Dow Rises Over 400 Points, All Three Major Indices Post Weekly Gains

On Friday Eastern Time, led by the technology sector, the three major U.S. stock indices closed higher collectively, all logging gains on the weekly chart. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 423.31 points, up 0.83%, to 51654.95; the S&P 500 index gained 46.15 points, up 0.59%, to 7811.51; the Nasdaq Composite Index added 172.83 points, up 0.64%, to 27366.17. Large-cap tech stocks traded mixed: Amazon was up 3.29%, Microsoft up 2.38%, Tesla up 2.05%, Google up 0.87%, Meta down 0.31%, NVIDIA down 0.52%, and Apple's share price fell 1.1%. (CLS)

Baidu, Galaxy Universal Robotics and Other Entities Take Equity Stakes in Jianzhi Robotics

36Kr learned from Tianyancha App that recently, Jianzhi Xinchuang (Beijing) Robot Technology Co., Ltd., the affiliated company of Jianzhi Robotics, has undergone industrial and commercial registration changes. New shareholders including Beijing Baidu Netcom Science and Technology Co., Ltd. and Suzhou Gabot Technology Co., Ltd. under Galaxy Universal Robotics have been added, and the registered capital has increased from about 193,000 RMB to about 10,524,000 RMB.

The company was founded in May 2025, with Chen Jianxing as its legal representative. Its business scope includes manufacturing of service consumer robots, sales of service consumer robots, software development and other related businesses. It is now jointly held by Chen Jianxing, Beijing Jianzhi Xinchuang No.1 Intelligent Technology Partnership (Limited Partnership) and the aforementioned new shareholders.

Ministry of Finance arranges to utilize 550 billion yuan of leftover local government debt quota

On the 9th, a reporter learned from the Ministry of Finance that the Ministry of Finance has recently arranged to use 550 billion yuan of the leftover quota of local government debt, which is applied to improve the general public budget guarantee capacity of counties and districts and support local governments to expand effective investment. Among the 550 billion yuan of leftover local government debt quota assigned to local authorities, the leftover quota of general debt totals 300 billion yuan, which is fully distributed to counties and districts for special use to improve their general public budget guarantee capacity and support sound local development. The 250 billion yuan of leftover special-purpose debt quota is allocated to regions that have actual project capital demands in the fourth quarter of this year, with preferential support for major economic provinces, to help relevant regions prioritize the funding needs of projects under construction. Newly launched projects will focus on key areas including the "six networks" construction, so as to give full play to the driving effect of government investment. The Ministry of Finance will guide and supervise all local regions to better align project reserve with bond issuance, accelerate the issuance pace, smooth the fund allocation chain, form tangible workload as soon as possible, and push relevant policies to be implemented and deliver expected effects at an early date. (CCTV News)

Netflix is reportedly undergoing organizational restructuring, which is expected to affect about 5% of its employees

Netflix is reportedly carrying out organizational restructuring that is expected to affect roughly 5% of its staff, and the relevant announcement is likely to be released as early as next week. (CLS)

Joint Statement of the Second Regular Meeting of the China-EU Trade and Investment Consultation Mechanism

36Kr learned from the Ministry of Commerce that from October 8 to 9, 2026, Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, and Maroš Šefčovič, European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, held the second regular meeting of the China-EU Trade and Investment Consultation Mechanism (hereinafter referred to as the Mechanism) in Beijing. The two sides conducted pragmatic and fruitful discussions and reached a list of outcome consensus. The two sides reaffirmed that as key trading partners, under the framework of WTO rules, they will properly handle their differences, commit to continuously stabilizing bilateral economic and trade relations and making them more balanced. The two sides agreed that the third regular meeting of the Mechanism will be held in March 2027, and the two sides will maintain close communication before that, including holding a ministerial-level video conference in January.

Bilibili Files Trademark Applications for JILIJILI and Other Related Marks

36kr learned from the intellectual property information of Tianyancha that recently, Shanghai Hedian Information Technology Co., Ltd., the operating entity of Bilibili, has applied for registration of multiple trademarks including "JILIJILI" and "ILIILI". The international classifications cover scientific instruments, communication services, website services, social services and other categories, and the current status of these trademarks is under application or pending substantive examination. It is worth mentioning that Shanghai Hedian previously also applied for registration of multiple trademarks with names similar to "bilibili", including "CILICILI", "DILIDILI", "EILIEILI", "GILIGILI", "HILIHILI", "KILIKILI", "OILICILI" and so on, whose international classifications involve education and entertainment, communication services, scientific instruments, website services and other fields. Among them, some trademarks such as "GILIGILI" and "KILIKILI" are marked as registered.

PBOC: The future RMB exchange rate will neither be deliberately appreciated nor deliberately depreciated

The People's Bank of China issued a policy position paper on the RMB exchange rate on the 8th, elaborating on the policy stance of the RMB exchange rate in a comprehensive and systematic way for the first time. The RMB exchange rate has always attracted extremely high attention, and the central bank also reiterated in this position that China adheres to letting the market play a decisive role in exchange rate formation. China implements a market-oriented exchange rate system and has completely withdrawn from regular interventions since 2017. The future RMB exchange rate will neither be deliberately appreciated nor deliberately depreciated. We will still respect the market, hold the bottom line, avoid gaming and never engage in tricky manipulations, which is the most core and certain general trend of the RMB exchange rate in the next few years. (CCTV News)

China Northern Rare Earth: The transaction price of rare earth concentrate in the fourth quarter is adjusted to RMB 38,769 per ton excluding tax

36Kr learned from the announcement of China Northern Rare Earth that the company adjusts the transaction price of rare earth concentrate for the fourth quarter of 2026 to RMB 38,769 per ton (excluding tax, dry basis, REO=50%). For every 1% increase or decrease of REO, the ex-tax price will increase or decrease by RMB 775.38 per ton accordingly.

Shantou, Guangdong, takes the lead nationwide to launch the "Ciyuan Overseas Expansion Loan"

In response to the common pain points of Ciyuan overseas enterprises including insufficient light asset mortgage and high pressure on cross-border operating capital turnover, under the guidance of the People's Bank of China Guangdong Branch, the People's Bank of China Shantou Branch, in conjunction with Shantou Municipal Finance Bureau and Shantou Overseas Chinese Pilot Zone, has promoted Bank of China Shantou Branch to innovate and launch the country's first special financial service solution targeting the Ciyuan overseas expansion scenario, namely the "Ciyuan Overseas Expansion Loan", and the first special credit of 1 million yuan has been put into place. (Jiemian News)

Proposed threshold for the establishment of equity funds to be lowered to 50 million yuan

36 Kr has learned that the China Securities Regulatory Commission is publicly soliciting public opinions on the *Measures for the Operation and Administration of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds (Draft for Comment)* and its supporting rules. The draft for comment supports the development of equity funds, and plans to lower the establishment threshold for products including equity funds and Fund of Funds (FOF) from the previous scale of 200 million yuan and 200 million shares to 50 million yuan and 50 million shares respectively, while the establishment threshold for fixed-income funds remains unchanged.

Apple Appoints New Head of Mergers and Acquisitions

Apple's new head of mergers and acquisitions is Steve Smith, who takes over the position from Adrian Perica; Perica will remain in charge of the iCloud, Fitness+ and News businesses. Smith will report directly to Kevan Parekh, Chief Financial Officer, and the M&A team will be brought back under the management of the finance department for the first time since 2019. Meanwhile, Carson Oliver has been promoted to Vice President of App Store. This personnel reshuffle is part of a series of leadership adjustments in Apple's services division. Eddy Cue will take over the App Store and other teams; Perica and Oliver Schusser are regarded as potential candidates to succeed Cue. (Sina Finance)

East Japan Railway Company: Approximately 6.09 million pieces of personal information may have been leaked

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) announced on October 9 that a total of about 6.09 million pieces of personal information including email addresses from services such as the group's credit card "Viewcard" may have been leaked, as the cloud service provided to enterprises by SoftBank's subsidiary IDC Frontier (Tokyo) was illegally accessed. JR East stated that no names, addresses or bank card numbers have been disclosed. (Jiemian News)

UK university students will need to meet minimum standards to apply for loans

According to people familiar with the matter, the UK government is working on a new scheme that requires university students to meet the minimum entry standards before they can apply for government student loans. Ministers will announce relevant plans to restrict the eligibility for student loan applications within a few weeks. The policy will focus on English proficiency, and officials are considering setting a pass in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) English subject as the threshold for loan applications. The UK may also launch consultations on lower standards, allowing other English qualification certificates to be used. The UK Department for Education confirmed that it will study "multiple alternative options" for setting the minimum English language requirement for student loans. (Sina Finance)

The central bank injects a net 100 billion yuan through government bond trading in the open market in September

36Kr learned that the People's Bank of China has released the liquidity deployment status of various central bank instruments for September 2026. In terms of central bank lending, the Standing Lending Facility (SLF) saw a net injection of 200 million yuan; the Medium-term Lending Facility (MLF) had a net injection of 200 billion yuan, and the Pledged Supplemental Lending (PSL) recorded a net withdrawal of 1.4 billion yuan. In terms of open market operations, the overnight and 7-day reverse repos realized a net withdrawal of 86 billion yuan, and the open market government bond trading posted a net injection of 100 billion yuan.

U.S. optical communications leader Lumentum says its production capacity for early 2029 is already fully sold out

Hurlston, CEO of the leading U.S. optical communications enterprise Lumentum, said on local time Friday that all the optical device production capacity of the company up to early 2029 has been completely sold out. Hurlston noted that about 70% of the demand for some products will still remain unmet next year, while 30% of the demand for other products cannot be satisfied by 2028. (Financial Associated Press)

BYD: Current flash-charging models have strong order demand, and the company's top priority is to accelerate the capacity ramp-up of the second-generation Blade Battery

36Kr has learned that BYD stated on the interactive platform that the company's product pricing is comprehensively considered based on multi-dimensional factors such as market competition, user demand, long-term brand strategy and capacity release rhythm. At present, the order demand for flash-charging models is strong. The company's primary goal is to accelerate the capacity ramp-up of the second-generation Blade Battery, make every effort to improve delivery capacity and ensure consumers' car purchase experience. All product-related price information shall be subject to official release.

Tech Giants Pledge $2.4 Billion to Support Trump Administration's AI Research Initiative

On October 8 local time, the Trump administration announced at a summit held in Washington on Thursday that Silicon Valley giants have committed $2.4 billion to boost scientific research, marking Washington's latest move to promote and harness artificial intelligence technologies. The White House said these donations will supply AI tools and computing power allowances for the government's "Genesis Program", which is designed to advance scientific research with AI and offer support to over 15 federal agencies. The announced investments include $1 billion from NVIDIA, $500 million from AMD, $200 million from OpenAI, and $150 million each from Anthropic and Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet. In addition, the Trump administration also plans to allocate more than $100 million to education programs for U.S. researchers in the STEM fields. (Shanghai Securities News)

IPO in Progress

SSE Terminates Qichacha's Main Board Listing Review

36Kr learned from the Shanghai Stock Exchange that since Qichacha Technology Co., Ltd. and its sponsor CITIC Securities Co., Ltd. have withdrawn their issuance and listing application, the Shanghai Stock Exchange has terminated the corresponding listing review in accordance with the relevant provisions of Article 63 of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Rules for the Review of Stock Issuance and Listing.

Large Enterprise Financial Reports

China Jushi: Net profit for the first three quarters is expected to increase by 100% to 110% year on year

36Kr has learned from the announcement of China Jushi that the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company in the first three quarters of 2026 is estimated to be between 5.136 billion yuan and 5.393 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 100% to 110%. In the first three quarters of 2026, demand in the major downstream application sectors of fiberglass has increased, with both product sales volume and price rising. The company has improved its profitability by accelerating product structure optimization, increasing investment in technological innovation, and strengthening market expansion.

Universal Scientific Industrial: Consolidated operating revenue in September reached 7.487 billion yuan, up 25.64% year on year

36Kr learned from the announcement of Universal Scientific Industrial that the company's consolidated operating revenue in September 2026 was 7.487 billion yuan, representing a 25.64% increase compared with the consolidated operating revenue in the same period of last year, and a 15.03% month-on-month growth compared with the consolidated operating revenue in August 2026. The consolidated operating revenue of the company from January to September 2026 totaled 46.88 billion yuan, rising 7.42% year on year against the consolidated operating revenue in the same period of last year.

Kinwong Electronic: The year-on-year increase of net profit in the third quarter is forecasted to reach 205.46% to 264.74%

36Kr learned from the announcement released by Kinwong Electronic that the net profit attributable to owners of the parent company in the third quarter of 2026 is expected to range from 912 million yuan to 1.089 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of 205.46% to 264.74% and a quarter-on-quarter growth of 147.20% to 195.18%.

Cool Products

Apple is about to launch touchscreen Mac

Apple Inc. plans to hold a product launch event around Tuesday, October 27, to officially unveil its first touchscreen MacBook and the new generation of iPad mini. The event will also showcase the 14-inch MacBook Pro and new iMac models equipped with the M6 chip, targeting creative professionals in the fields of video production, photo editing and music creation. The new MacBook Pro will be thinner and lighter than the existing model, and is fitted with an OLED screen. The brand new iPad mini is equipped with an OLED display, upgraded video conferencing camera and a redesigned speaker system. (Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily)

Compiled by Song Qingyu