The Zhitong Finance App learned that Bank of America Securities released a research report stating that maintaining the “buy” rating of China Aluminum (02600) is based on still positive views on aluminum prices and that it is an industry leader. Based on last year's results and the company's latest guidelines, the company's earnings forecast per share for this year and next two years was raised by 2% to 7%, and the target price was raised from HK$5 to HK$5.7.

According to the report, the company's net profit after tax rose 60% year on year to 6.7 billion yuan, which is the median of Yingxi's forecast range, which means that net profit after tax for the fourth quarter of last year fell 30% quarterly to 1.36 billion yuan. According to the bank, the company lost 755 million yuan in asset impairment last year, down from 4.9 billion yuan in 2022. Based on the company's reduction in depreciation of obsolete assets, credit impairment improved from 414 million yuan in 2022 to a recovery of 146 million yuan last year.

The bank predicts that the price of aluminum in China will be 19,000 yuan per ton, and that the gross profit of China Aluminum will be 3,000 yuan per ton this year, benefiting from limited supply growth and lower costs of coal and anode carbon blocks. The industry expects China's aluminum demand to increase by 2% this year, supported by investment in power grids, good growth in electric vehicles and light weight trends, offsetting the impact of the slowdown in real estate demand and photovoltaic demand growth.