Hot news

• Far from being crazy in 1999, Goldman Sachs: There's still room for this tech bull market

Goldman Sachs pointed out in its latest report that the rise in technology stocks will continue in the short term. The surge in IT capital expenditure and productivity in 1994 began a multi-year upward trend in the NASDAQ. Compared with the ups and downs of 1999 and 2000, this round of growth is much weaker.

• How long will the high interest rates last? Wall Street waits for this week's economic inflation data

Recently, America's “anti-inflation” process was unexpectedly bumpy. This week, the US will welcome key economic data including the revised real GDP value for the fourth quarter and PCE for January. Analysts speculate that the US core PCE growth rate may accelerate to 0.4% month-on-month in January. Inflation is rekindling the resilience of the US economy, and market expectations of interest rate cuts may be suppressed again.

• Economists lowered the probability of a US recession to 40%, and expect interest rates to be cut by only 25 basis points in the third quarter

Due to the popularity of employment data recently released by the US, economists raised their expectations for the growth rate of the US economy this year and lowered the probability of a recession in the coming year to 40% again, the lowest since mid-2022. However, although economists expect inflation to slow further, it is expected that the Federal Reserve will continue to maintain high interest rates for a longer period of time. It is estimated that it will only cut interest rates by 25 basis points in the third quarter of this year.

• The global chip industry waits for this week's conference and calls on India to no longer support data transmission tariffs

This week, the WTO will hold a new WTO meeting. At the meeting, countries will discuss whether to continue extending the digital transmission tariff exemption agreement. The semiconductor industry is the latest industry to call for an extension of the exemption order, and says that restarting tariffs will raise chip prices and exacerbate chip shortages.

• Japanese stocks have returned to their peak in history, and local individual investors are finally taking action

Last week, the Nikkei 225 index surpassed the record high of 38,957 points at the end of 1989, reaching a record high. An official from Japan's Financial Services Agency pointed out that at present, about 20 million NISA accounts have been opened domestically, and people in their 20s and 30s seem to be taking the first step in investing.

Resumption of US stock trading

• The Dow and S&P continued to reach new highs, and Nvidia's market capitalization briefly surpassed $2 trillion

On Friday, the three major US stock indices had mixed ups and downs. The Dow and S&P continued to reach new highs, and both recorded weekly gains.

Major technology stocks had mixed ups and downs. Nvidia rose 0.36%, briefly breaking through $2 trillion in intraday market capitalization; Amazon rose 0.23%, Google C fell 0.02%, Microsoft fell 0.32%, Meta fell 0.43%, Apple fell 1.00%, and Tesla fell 2.76%.

Most popular Chinese securities fell, with NIO falling more than 7%, Xiaopeng Motors falling more than 5%, Pinduoduo falling nearly 3%, and Alibaba, JD, and Ideal Auto falling slightly.

• Amid the surge, Nvidia was one of the few empty voices

Last week, AI leaders$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$Once again, it showed explosive performance and detonated the entire chip sector. Short analyst DA Davidson believes that Nvidia's demand may decline after the next 4-6 quarters, revenue growth will slow down in the 2025/2026 fiscal year, and the current valuation is high enough. UBS, on the other hand, pointed out that from an analysis of factors such as the quarterly decline in Nvidia's total supply and rising operating costs, Nvidia's revenue growth rate will slow down. Deutsche Bank believes that the near and medium term fundamental momentum is still beneficial to Nvidia's development, but the profit potential is fully reflected in the current valuation.

• Berkshire's Q4 net profit doubled year-on-year, investment income was nearly US$30 billion, and cash reserves set a record

$Berkshire Hathaway-A (BRK.A.US)$Net profit for Q4 of 2023 was US$37.574 billion, double that of US$18.08 billion in the same period last year. This includes the paper income of US$29.09 billion from Buffett's stock portfolio of approximately US$350 billion. Stock earnings mainly come from Apple, the largest stock, which accounts for about half of the portfolio. By the end of the fourth quarter of last year, Berkshire's cash reserves had risen to a record $167.6 billion.

• Buffett definitely “bought it again”! The five largest trading companies in Japan have already held 9% of the shares and earned 8 billion US dollars by the end of last year, with a yield of 60%

Buffett revealed in a shareholder letter that Berkshire currently owns 5 Japanese trading companies each ($ITOCHU (8001.JP)$,$Marubeni (8002.JP)$,$Mitsubishi (8058.JP)$,$Mitsui (8031.JP)$und$Sumitomo (8053.JP)$) Close to 9% of the shares. Currently, Berkshire's investment costs for these five companies total 1.6 trillion yen, and the year-end market value of the five companies is 2.9 trillion yen. As the yen depreciated in recent years, Berkshire's year-end unrealized dollar earnings were 61%, or $8 billion.

• At a time when US stocks reached a new high, J.P. Morgan CEO sold the first batch of shares worth 150 million US dollars

According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) document,$JPMorgan (JPM.US)$CEO Dimon and his family sold around 822,000 shares in a series of deals on Thursday, at a sale price of nearly $183 per share, worth about $150 million. After the sale, Dimon and his family still hold approximately 7.7 million shares. On Friday, J.P. Morgan's stock price was not affected by the news of Dimon's stock sale. However, financial blogger Zerohedge warns that company insiders are selling stocks at a rate that has not been seen for many years.

• A lunar probe accident occurred, and the American space exploration company Intuitive Machines fell nearly 32% after the market

American Space Exploration Company$Intuitive Machines (LUNR.US)$US stocks fell nearly 32% after the market. The company reported that its previously successfully launched lunar probe may have “overturned,” but emphasized that its solar cell system is still working well. The company closed up nearly 16% on Friday.

Top 20 US stock turnover

Hong Kong Market Outlook

• Beishui raised more than HK$2 billion in Hong Kong stock ETFs, and once again increased CNOOC's holdings by over HK$800 million

On February 23 (Friday), Southbound made a net purchase of HK$6.445 billion in Hong Kong stocks.

$TRACKER FUND OF HONG KONG (02800.HK)$,$CNOOC (00883.HK)$,$CSOP Hang Seng TECH Index ETF (03033.HK)$Received net purchases of HK$2,065 million, HK$820 million and HK$657 million respectively;

$ICBC (01398.HK)$,$LENOVO GROUP (00992.HK)$,$TENCENT (00700.HK)$Net sales were HK$166 million, HK$89.83 million and HK$37.55 million respectively.

Today's attention

Keywords: Total New Home Sales in the U.S., Ideal Automobile/Zoom Video Communication/Unity Software Performance

On Monday, in terms of economic data, the total annualization of new home sales in the US will be announced. As mortgage interest rates fall from last year's high, it is worth paying attention to whether real estate sales data such as new and existing home sales can continue to improve.

In terms of financial reports,$Li Auto (LI.US)$Results will be announced in advance of the US stock market.

CMB International predicts that the ideal net profit attributable to common shareholders was 8.926 billion yuan last year. Net profit for the fourth quarter of last year is estimated to be 2.9 billion yuan. Affected by increased discounts, the average sales price per vehicle during the quarter is expected to drop 13,000 yuan, or 4%, to 306,000 yuan from quarter to 306,000 yuan. The quarterly gross margin of automobiles fell 1 percentage point to 20.2% from quarter to quarter. It is expected that 75% of the sales incentives provided during the quarter will be offset by cost reductions due to scale effects and falling raw material prices. The overall gross margin for the quarter is expected to fall by 1 percentage point to 21% on a quarterly basis. The bank said bluntly that it may be difficult to forecast R&D, sales, and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of last year, as the company accelerated its R&D expenses and increased its showroom by 106 during the quarter, the fastest growth in history. The bank predicts that R&D, sales and administration will account for 15.1% of overall revenue during the quarter, down 0.4 percentage points from quarter to quarter.

Furthermore,$Zoom Video Communications (ZM.US)$,$Unity Software (U.US)$Results will be announced after the US stock market.

Futubull Chen read:

Persistence and confidence are important, but blind persistence and confidence are dangerous.
—Charlie Munger

Editor/Somer