Gold Mantis' stock price on A-shares market from mid-Mach to Wednesday, May 20, 2026. Photo: screenshot from Chinese stock trading application

Gold Mantis, a traditional interior decoration company, recently became one of the hottest stocks in China's A-share market after being linked to trendy concepts including commercial aerospace and data centers, despite having little direct connection to either industry, the China News Weekly reported Tuesday. 

The company's stock surged more than 136 percent within 15 trading days starting April 16, hitting 11 daily limit ups and climbing from around 3.3 yuan ($0.49) to 8.4 yuan per share. 

The rally was triggered after Gold Mantis signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Vietnam's Sun Group in April. Although there was speculation that the cooperation could involve projects worth $2.3 billion, the company later clarified the memorandum was only a non-binding preliminary agreement.

On April 22, Gold Mantis announced that its Vietnam subsidiary had secured an interior decoration contract worth about 400 million yuan for the T2 terminal project at Phu Quoc International Airport in Vietnam, according to the Security Times on April 23. 

Despite being a standard airport decoration project, investors quickly associated the company with the "commercial aerospace" sector, jokingly calling it "the first space renovation stock."

Some investors also pointed to the company's previous participation in non-core decoration and electromechanical support projects for Huawei cloud data centers and commercial launch facilities in South China's Hainan Province, helping attach labels such as "commercial aerospace," "data center," and "Vietnam expansion" to the stock.

Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said such concept driven rallies often rely on investors amplifying marginal businesses that contribute very little to a company's actual revenue, while using popular technology labels to attract speculative capital.

Liu noted that some funds take advantage of low valuation stocks that have traded sideways for a long period, accumulating positions before pushing prices sharply higher through market hype, even when the company repeatedly clarifies that its core business fundamentals have not changed.

However, the frenzy now appears to be cooling. Gold Mantis shares hit the daily drop limit again on Wednesday, closing at 6.21 yuan per share. 

Meanwhile, reports that 73 employees collectively cashed out at least 91.32 million yuan worth of shares have further dampened market sentiment, accelerating the stock's recent pullback.


Global Times