The total net profit of 254 chemical listed companies in the first three quarters increased by more than 116% Under the background of "double carbon", the company's R&D investment has attracted attention

Reporter Li Zheng

Recently, as the A-share market entered the peak period of the disclosure of the third quarterly report, the chemical sector, which continued to be in the hot spot of speculation in the early stage, has been closely focused on by investors.

According to the data of oriental wealth choice financial terminal, as of the deadline of october 28, 254 of the 392 listed companies in the A-share chemical sector (classified by Shenwan first-class industry) have disclosed the third quarter report of 2021.

According to the profit situation, during the reporting period, of the above 254 listed companies in the chemical sector, 181 achieved a year-on-year increase in net profit compared with last year, and 73 achieved a year-on-year decline, and the total net profit increased by 92.469 billion yuan over the same period last year, an increase of 116.66% year-on-year, reflecting a high degree of industry prosperity.

In this regard, Qi Haiyan, president of Beijing Teyi Sunshine New Energy, said in an interview with the Securities Daily reporter that the performance of listed companies in the chemical sector has increased significantly, mainly due to the rise in international commodity prices such as crude oil.

According to Qi Haiyan, the rise in international commodity prices is directly beneficial to mining enterprises in the upper reaches of the chemical industry chain and fine chemicals and other processing enterprises in the middle reaches. "And for chemical companies with relatively low energy efficiency output, if they can't control the cost of raw materials in the upstream and midstream, or the environmental protection requirements are not up to standard, they will face the fate of being eliminated, at the same time, in the future, in the context of the weak dollar, the high consumer inflation and economic recovery in the United States will provide high support for the price of commodities such as crude oil denominated in US dollars, and it is likely to last for a long time, which is a test of the transformation and upgrading ability of the survival of the fittest for downstream small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, market concentration is also changing. ”

In fact, as Qi Haiyan said, the profit growth distribution of the chemical industry is already tilting towards large head enterprises.

The data shows that among the above 181 listed companies with year-on-year net profits, the total net profit achieved during the reporting period increased by 99.796 billion yuan compared with the same period last year, while the net profits of the top 20 listed companies in terms of market capitalization increased by 51.404 billion yuan compared with the same period last year, which means that more than 50% of the industry's profit growth was digested by the top 20 head companies.

At the same time, the Securities Daily reporter noted when combing the data that corresponding to the profit growth of the chemical sector is the growth of research and development expenses of listed companies in the sector. During the reporting period, the above 254 listed companies achieved a total investment of 28.998 billion yuan in R&D expenses, an increase of 48.41% year-on-year; among them, 198 companies in the sector invested in R&D expenses increased compared with last year, accounting for 77.95% of the total.

In this regard, Yang Delong, chief economist of Qianhai Open Source Fund, said in an interview with the "Securities Daily" reporter that this year's chemical companies are greatly affected by the rise in raw material prices, for chemical companies, by increasing research and development investment can be a good way to improve the added value of products, in the defense of rising raw material prices at the same time, can better meet the growing demand side of product function and quality requirements, there will be more possibilities to improve product prices.

Lang Chengcheng, general manager of the research department of Furong Fund, believes that under the background of "double carbon", the chemical industry may continue to face the situation of supply-side constraints, so in the future, it is more optimistic about the leading companies with scale advantages, high resource utilization efficiency and willing to allocate as much corporate profits as possible to research and development work.

For the investment value of the future chemical sector subdivision industry, Lang Chengcheng told the "Securities Daily" reporter that in terms of new energy chemicals, phosphorus sources rose again, silicon prices are strong; lithium battery materials, the recent lithium battery related materials industry inventory continued to be low, the product basically maintained full production and full sales, in the case of downstream demand, the industrial chain is difficult to recover, and the tight spot supply situation will be further continued.

(Edited by Li Bo and Sun Qian)