The downward trend of construction machinery has not been changed yet

Construction machinery sector performance continued to be weaker than the broader market in October. Construction machinery rose 0.54% in October. The Shanghai Composite Index rose by 4.57% in the same period, and the Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 Index rose by 4.67%. The performance of the construction machinery sector continued to be weaker than the broader market.

Investment in fixed assets continues to slow down, and fine-tuning of policies will bring structural improvements. In the first three quarters, nominal fixed asset investment increased by 24.9% year-on-year, 0.7 percentage points lower than the first half of the year, and the decline rate was in line with market expectations. The policy has been fine-tuned. The Prime Minister stated that the credit policy must ensure that the country is focusing on the needs of continuing construction projects, such as railway construction and water conservancy investment. But overall, as long as there is no significant relaxation in credit and liquidity, the trend of deceleration in investment in fixed assets will not change.

The sales volume of construction machinery was picking up seasonally, and the downward trend of the industry economy remained unchanged. In September, the sales volume of excavators, bulldozers and road rollers both rose seasonally, but the intensity was weaker than in previous years; the sales of truck cranes industry fell sharply; indicating that the trend of decline in the prosperity of construction machinery industry has not changed. The export market has grown significantly and its performance far better than that of the domestic market. If we still maintain a tight monetary policy, we expect that the fundamentals of the industry will hardly be fundamentally improved in the next quarter.

The valuation of construction machinery sector is at a historical low, and the stock price will follow the broader market changes. At present, the static PE of the construction machinery sector is 10.97 times, and the overall PB is 2.37 times. The valuation level is close to the level of the financial crisis in 2008, and construction machinery may have a certain margin of safety. Although investors are still worried about the impact of the economic downturn leading to declining demand, in the medium term, the industry has entered a bottom-line process. Short-term engineering machinery stocks will still follow the broader market changes.

The growth rate of investment in fixed assets will continue to decline, investment in water conservancy and railway equipment will likely start to stabilize next year, and the pulling of construction machinery in the short term will be limited. The economic conditions of construction machinery will hardly improve in the next quarter. The industry is still in the process of looking for the bottom, maintaining the industry's "neutral" rating.