Cybersecurity stocks surged on Wednesday (September 14) amid the arrival of National Cybersecurity Week, with Qiming Information Technology Co., Ltd. (002232.SZ) and Topsec Technologies Group Inc. (002212.SZ) both hitting the daily limit up. Other players including Anbob, AsiaInfo Security, Anheng Information, and NSFOCUS followed with significant gains. The benchmark index tracked by the Software Development ETF Huabao (159036) climbed nearly 1.5% intraday, currently up 0.64%, clearly outpacing the broader market in real-time performance.

On the news front, the annual National Cybersecurity Publicity Week arrived as scheduled, with the 2026 edition set for September 14-20. The opening ceremony and core summit will be held in Jinan, marking the country's highest-level and most widely covered annual cybersecurity campaign for the public, co-hosted by ten central ministries. Notably, Jinan, the host city, is the nation's second "China Software City" (after Nanjing), housing over 200 cybersecurity-related enterprises, with its core cybersecurity industry scale surpassing 19 billion yuan in 2025.

On the policy side, on September 11, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "AI + Software" Special Action Implementation Plan. The plan aims to significantly elevate the intelligence level of the software and information technology services industry by 2028, cultivate a batch of high-caliber intelligent programming tools and development platforms, extend applications to cover 20,000 software enterprises above designated scale, achieve notable progress in intelligent upgrades of key software, and implement a cumulative total of 100 intelligent transformation projects for software enterprises.

On the industry front, in the Agent era, software firms can partner with large model companies and monetize through Agent calls. Drawing on the example of U.S. software giant Salesforce partnering with Anthropic to launch "Claudeforce," Salesforce has built a revenue mechanism: every time a third-party AI (Agent) invokes data within Salesforce's applications, Salesforce profits. This means even if users do not directly interact with Salesforce's interface, the software company benefits solely from Agent calls, converting potential customer churn risk into a new monetization channel.

Looking ahead, Guosheng Securities recommends focusing on two main themes for the second half: ① basic software/financial IT in the Xinchuang (indigenous innovation) sector with low valuations and confirmed orders; ② AI scheduling, intelligent programming, and industry-specific Agent software with clear AI monetization paths.

Where the hardware ends, software's spring may begin

Across historical tech revolutions, profits have consistently flowed from hardware to applications. Earlier this year, disrupted by the "large models devour software" narrative, AI application valuations saw notable discounts, making the software development sector a "water-level depression" in the AI chain, highlighting safety margins and cost-effectiveness. Currently, the software industry is in an overall upward cycle, but uncertainty remains over which niche or stock will outperform. An alternative is to leverage the Software Development ETF Huabao (159036) for full-sector exposure—comprising 107 constituent stocks that comprehensively cover AI+finance, AI+healthcare, AI+office, AI+education, AI+information security, and AI+government affairs.

Driven by AI empowerment and Xinchuang initiatives, the software development direction is poised for growth. The benchmark index of Software Development ETF Huabao (159036) (the Software Development Index) includes popular concepts: as of end-August, the weightings of AI applications, cloud computing, Xinchuang industry, fintech, cybersecurity, and HarmonyOS ecosystem concept constituents stand at 46.77%, 42.20%, 41.74%, 33.23%, 16.72%, and 14.31%, respectively.

On valuation, as of end-August, the Software Development Index's price-to-earnings ratio (TTM) was 182.89x, below over 70% of historical time periods since listing, making its valuation cost-effectiveness and safety margin relatively robust.

Fee disclosure: The Software Development ETF Huabao does not charge a sales service fee. When subscribing or redeeming fund shares, the agency broker may charge a commission of up to 0.3%. Over-the-counter trading fees are subject to actual charges by the securities firm.

Risk warning: The Software Development ETF Huabao passively tracks the CSI All-Share Software Development Index, with a base date of December 31, 2021, and a release date of March 29, 2023. The fund is issued and managed by Huabao Fund; distribution institutions do not bear investment or redemption responsibilities for the product. Investors should carefully read fund legal documents such as the Fund Contract, Prospectus, and Fund Product Information Summary to understand the fund's risk-return profile and select products aligned with their own risk tolerance. The fund manager rates this fund's risk level as R3-Medium Risk, suitable for investors with a balanced (C3) rating or above; the suitability match opinion is subject to the sales institution's confirmation. Sales institutions (including the fund manager's direct sales and other distributors) conduct risk assessments on the fund per relevant laws; investors should promptly review the suitability opinions issued by sales institutions and rely on their matching results. These opinions may not be consistent across institutions, and the product risk rating results from fund sales institutions may not be lower than the risk rating from the fund manager. Differences exist between the fund contract's risk-return characteristics and risk level due to varying consideration factors. Investors should understand the fund's risk-return profile, consider their own investment objectives, horizon, experience, and risk tolerance, and choose carefully while bearing risks themselves. Registration of the fund with the China Securities Regulatory Commission does not imply a substantive judgment or guarantee of its investment value, market prospects, or returns. Past performance and net value levels do not indicate future performance, and the performance of other funds managed by the fund manager does not constitute a guarantee of this fund's performance. Funds carry risks; invest with caution!

A MACD golden cross signal has formed, and these stocks are showing solid upward momentum!