HK Stock Market Move | Lithium stocks decline in the afternoon; peak-season lithium carbonate market moves downward against expectations; UBS further cuts its domestic lithium price forecast.

Lithium stocks decline in the afternoon. As of press time, Ganfeng Lithium Group (01772) fell 3.53% to HK$33.34; Tianqi Lithium Corporation (09696) fell 2.65% to HK$30.86. On the news front, since September, the lithium carbonate market has shown a one-way downward trend, dragging down the share prices of listed companies in the lithium mining sector in tandem. On September 16, the price of the main domestic lithium carbonate futures contract continued to probe lower, at one point falling to 124,020 yuan/ton during intraday trading; it has fallen more than 20% since September, and has dropped over 40% in four months, basically erasing this year's gains. CITIC Futures believes that rising expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes have driven a broad pullback in non-ferrous metals, with lithium prices clearly weighed down. At the same time, market expectations for next year's demand are relatively pessimistic, especially with doubts over the sustainability of high growth in energy storage. A UBS research report pointed out that after the bank's global commodities team lowered its global lithium price assumptions, UBS further cut its 2027 China lithium price assumption from 200,000 yuan per ton to 120,000 yuan per ton, while also lowering its earnings forecasts and target prices for Chinese lithium stocks. The bank believes the market may currently be overly worried about the potential destocking risk for China's battery energy storage system batteries, while ignoring the risk that the anti-corruption investigation in Jiangxi could lead to a decline in supply.