Moore Threads surged 411% on its first trading day

Moore Threads hit the Shanghai STAR Market on Friday, and the stock surged by an astonishing 411% in the first session. The price rose from an IPO level of 114.28 yuan straight to 584.98 yuan.Moore Threads is now China’s second‑largest onshore IPO of the year, after Huadian New Energy Group’s $2.7 billion deal in July.The Beijing-based company pulled in nearly 8 billion yuan, or about $1.13 billion, from the public sale. That priced the business at around $7.6 billion. Demand was heavy from the start.The retail portion of the offering was oversubscribed 2,750 times, even after the greenshoe option kicked in. Bloomberg data shows it is now the second most chased mainland IPO above $1 billion since 2022.China is focusing on homemade chips as Nvidia fades awayEarlier this year, Chinese regulators relaxed listing rules on the STAR Board, a change that allowed unprofitable firms to go public faster.Fan Zhiyuan, an analyst at Sinolink Securities Co., said the company benefits from the push for local replacement of foreign chips. In a research note, he wrote that the firm stands to gain from the domestic substitution trend linked to trade frictions and state support for national champions. He also said Moore Threads is the only Chinese company that can produce general‑purpose graphics processing units.Money from the IPO is already mapped out. The company said funds will go into next‑generation AI and graphics chip projects. Part of the cash will also cover working capital as production and research scale up.Moore’s net loss reached 724 million yuan in the first three quarters of the year. That loss narrowed by 19% from the same period last year, according to Sinolink. At the same time, revenue jumped 182% to 780 million yuan. Growth is heavy. Profits are not here yet.Valuation remains a hot issue. In a Dec. 4 filing, the company showed a price‑to‑sales ratio of 123 times at the IPO price. The peer average sits at 111 times. That gap raised flags. The company even asked its lead sponsor to remind investors about valuation risks tied to the stock.Zhang Jianzhong builds Moore Threads after US block hitsMoore Threads’ founder is Zhang Jianzhong, a former Nvidia executive. The company first sold graphics chips for gaming and visual rendering. Later, it moved into AI accelerators used in large language models.In October 2023, the US Commerce Department placed the company on its entity list, cutting access to key technologies, and Moore had to go through job cuts and internal restructuring after the ban.Even with that setback, investor mood stayed strong. Beijing kept promoting semiconductors as part of its technology supremacy plan. The Star 50 Index, which tracks the largest STAR Board companies, is up 34% this year. Shares of Cambricon Technologies Corp. have doubled over the same period.The surge in Moore Threads is already changing the IPO calendar. MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co., a close peer, opened subscriptions on Friday.At the same time, memory chip makers Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. and ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. are weighing their own onshore listings. Each deal could hit valuations as high as 300 billion yuan.Recent deals across the board have shown sharp first‑day gains. Market cash had stayed on the sidelines for months. That created room for violent price moves. “So it makes sense for a sizable jump at its debut,” said Chen Zunde, a fund manager at Guangdong Fund Investment Co. He also warned that such large deals could pull money away from peers and add pressure to the wider market.By the end of Friday’s session, Moore Threads had already logged a gain of more than 400%. The stock sat at 584.98 yuan, still trading at over five times its IPO price of 114.28 yuan, with volume staying heavy into the close. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.