Global news： U.S. stocks rebound, chip stocks outperform the broader market, and Bank of America is optimistic about Apple’s rise over 3%.
On Thursday (January 19th), EST, driven by the general increase of technology stocks, the three major US stock indexes collectively closed up, with the Nasdaq rising by more than 1% to smooth out the decline during the year, and the Nasdaq 100 index reached a record high.
At the close, the Dow rose 201.94 points, or 0.54%, to 37,468.61 points. The Nasdaq rose 200.03 points, or 1.35%, to 15,055.65 points. The S&P 500 rose slightly by 41.73 points, or 0.88%, to 4,780.94 points.
The eye-catching performance of technology stocks overnight was mainly driven by two news sources. First, the performance of the chip foundry giant TSMC Q4 exceeded expectations, and its share price also rose by nearly 10%. Goldman Sachs analysts said on Thursday that TSMC management believes that manufacturing AI chips may account for more than 10% of its revenue within five years, which will have a positive impact on NVIDIA and AMD. Sure enough, NVIDIA and AMD’s share prices closed at record highs.
Some analysts said that technology stocks were boosted by TSMC’s latest performance today, and the company has many positive views on the forward-looking guidance of semiconductors and AI.
On the other hand, Apple, which has been hit by the headwind recently, has been favored by Bank of America against the market. It upgraded Apple’s stock rating to buy, and predicted that Apple’s share price will rise by more than 20% in the next 12 months. This has also boosted the confidence of the market to a certain extent. After all, the former "stock king" was an important heavyweight in Nasdaq.
On the macro level, the US Senate passed the short-term expenditure bill of the federal government, and about 20% of the government funds due are expected to "renew their lives" in the short term. Although this is nothing new, at least a big stone hanging above the market has landed.
In addition, Bostic, chairman of the Atlanta Federal Reserve and the voting committee of the Federal Reserve this year, said that he now thinks that the time to cut interest rates is the third quarter of this year. However, if inflation slows down "much faster than he expected", then he will be open to taking action earlier.
It is worth mentioning that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the United States reached 187,000 in the first week of January 13, the lowest since the week of September 24, 2022, indicating that the US job market is full of resilience. After the data was released, the yield of US bonds continued to rise, and the yield of 10-year US bonds remained above 4.1%, and finally closed at 4.142%. The yield of two-year US bonds, which is more sensitive to the Fed’s policy interest rate, closed at 4.354%.
[Hot stocks]
Among the large-scale technology stocks in the United States, Apple rose 3.26%, Amazon rose 1.18%, Google A rose 1.42%, and Nye soared 1.04%. NVIDIA closed up nearly 2%, reaching a record high with AMD, which once rose more than 5%. Microsoft hit a record high, while Tesla fell nearly 2%.
[global index]
In the European stock market, the FTSE 100 index rose slightly by 0.17% to 7459 points. The French CAC40 index rose 1.13% to 7401 points. Germany DAX index rose slightly by 0.83% to 16,567 points.
In Asian stock markets, the Hang Seng Index rose slightly by 0.75% to 15,392 points.
[foreign exchange commodities]
The main contract of Brent crude oil closed at $78.96 per barrel, up 1.39%; The main contract of crude oil in the previous period closed at 564.60 yuan per barrel overnight, up 1.99%. Overnight, the Shanghai gold main contract closed up 0.11% to 479.96 yuan per gram.
[Highlights]
Us Senate passes short-term spending bill
The short-term spending bill passed by the Senate on Thursday extended the federal government’s spending funds to March. If it fails to pass, including funds from the Ministry of Communications, some veterans’ assistance and food and drug safety projects, about 20% of government funds will expire after 0: 00 am on the 20th. The short-term spending bill has been submitted to the House of Representatives, which is expected to vote later on Thursday.
What is Trump’s "market significance"? Goldman Sachs: US dollar and US bond yields rise
Goldman Sachs believes that if the Republican Party wins and sweeps the Senate and the House of Representatives, then the US market may experience a strong dollar, rising inflation, rising US Treasury yields and a steep yield curve in the future, which will increase the risk of large fluctuations in energy prices.
Federal Reserve Voting Committee: The first rate cut is most likely in the third quarter. If inflation accelerates, we are open to taking action earlier.
Bostic, president of Atlanta Federal Reserve, said that he wanted to see more evidence of "disinflation" before the Fed cut interest rates, and reiterated that he now thought that the time to cut interest rates was the third quarter of this year. Bostic added that if inflation slows down "much faster than he expected", he would be open to taking action earlier. However, he also reiterated that he is still looking for more evidence to prove that "we are on the track to 2%".
Minutes of ECB meeting: Need to remain vigilant and patient.
High interest rates will continue for some time, and the fear of a "hard landing" in the economy will ease. Some officials of the European Central Bank are worried that premature relaxation may affect anti-inflation efforts, so they prefer to maintain high interest rates for a while.
IEA: IEA：2024, the oil market was "sufficiently supplied"
IEA predicts that oil supply outside OPEC+ will grow faster than global demand, and inventories may increase from the second quarter to the end of the year. This conclusion is completely contrary to the report released by OPEC yesterday. But at the same time, IEA, like OPEC monthly report, also expects the global oil demand to grow strongly. In the monthly report, IEA will increase the expected increase of oil demand in 2024 by 180,000 barrels per day.
"US retail base camp" is going to IPO. Tencent is a shareholder.
According to insiders, the US version of "Post Bar" Reddit, which is financed by Tencent, is about to start a listing plan that has been brewing for more than three years. It will launch an IPO in March, and a careful listing plan has been formulated. According to two sources, Reddit secretly submitted an IPO application in December 2021, and plans to apply publicly at the end of February this year, start a roadshow in early March, and complete the IPO at the end of March.
Bank of America is optimistic about Apple’s upgrade rating against the market, and its share price is expected to rise by more than 20%.
Bank of America analysts sharply raised Apple’s target price by more than 8%, 23% higher than Wednesday’s close. They believe that AI and hybrid head-mounted Vision Pro will bring upward momentum to Apple’s hardware and service business, and the generative AI function will make the iPhone’s multi-year upgrade cycle stronger. Apple’s share price rose more than 3% in intraday trading, smoothing out the decline in January.
Google will invest $1 billion to build a new data center in the UK to meet the demand.
Google, owned by Alphabet, said in a statement on Thursday night that it would invest $1 billion to build a new data center in the UK to meet the growing demand for Google services. This is an encouragement to the Conservative government led by British Prime Minister Sunak, because it is trying to position Britain as a world leader in science and technology.
Meta will spend billions of dollars to buy NVIDIA’s AI chips.
On Thursday, local time, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said on social media that the company’s future roadmap of artificial intelligence (AI) requires it to build a large-scale computing infrastructure. Zuckerberg said that by the end of 2024, the infrastructure will include 350,000 H100 graphics cards from NVIDIA. Zuckerberg did not disclose how many H100 graphics cards Meta has purchased, but H100 will not be available until the end of 2022, and the supply is limited.
[financial calendar]
