Hot news

• Xiaomo expects the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates in July

After the US released strong employment data for March, economists postponed their expectations for the Fed to cut interest rates for the first time in this cycle. They expect the Fed to start easing monetary policy in July rather than June. Michael Feroli, chief American economist at Komo, wrote in the report that slowing wage increases and steady employment growth prove that the supply side of the labor market has improved. J.P. Morgan still expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates three times this year, first in July, then in September and December.

• Federal Reserve Survey: US Short-Term Inflation Expectations Are Stabilizing

According to a consumer expectations survey by the New York Federal Reserve, the US inflation forecast remained stable at 3% in March; the three-year inflation forecast rose to 2.9%, compared to 2.7% in February; and the five-year inflation forecast fell to 2.6%, compared to 2.9% in February. With clear signs of rising US inflation since the beginning of the year, many senior Federal Reserve officials recently expressed hawkish views. The latest survey data from the New York Federal Reserve helped slightly ease the concerns of officials.

• Wall Street “Prophet”: America is entering a new phase of inflation!

Gang Hu, a trader at New York hedge fund WinShore Capital Partners, said, “We probably won't see major asset prices fall.” He said that the US economy and financial market seem to be entering a new phase in the current era of inflation. At this stage, even if the Federal Reserve fails to significantly curb price increases or starts cutting interest rates, the prices of all major assets are likely to continue to rise. Over the past few years, Hu has made a series of accurate predictions, making his views worthy of attention.

• Wells Fargo raised its target for US stocks to the highest on Wall Street

Christopher Harvey, head of stock strategy at Wells Fargo Securities, raised the target for the S&P 500 index from 4,625 points to 5,535 points at the end of the year, the highest among strategists tracked by institutions. Harvey said in the report that the long-term growth potential of artificial intelligence technology, improved profit prospects, and a longer view of investors and higher valuation thresholds will all be catalysts for market growth.

• Komo CEO Dimon: AI changes are comparable to steam engines, and the US may face higher inflation and interest rates

Komo CEO Jamie Dimon issued a warning in his annual shareholder letter that due to continued high government spending, the US inflation rate and interest rate may remain above market expectations for a long time, and it is not likely that the US economy will achieve a soft landing. He also believes that artificial intelligence may be the biggest problem Komo is working to solve. He “fully believes that its impact will be huge,” and compared its potential influence with historic technological innovations such as steam engines.

• As it was about to be “halved”, Bitcoin once broke the $72,000 mark

Bitcoin surpassed $72,000 for the first time since mid-March as the halving event approached. Traders who shorted Bitcoin lost nearly $55 million on Monday, according to Coinglass data. In contrast, long position holders have already made profits of nearly $11 million. Furthermore, according to the plan, Bitcoin will halve the rewards for miners to mine new blocks in 10 days, probably around April 18, which may be a catalyst for Bitcoin's rise.

• Citi expects copper prices to reach 10,000 US dollars per ton in the fourth quarter of this year

Under basic circumstances, the copper price is expected to reach 10,000 US dollars per ton in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 12,000 US dollars per ton in 2026, according to Citi. Our benchmark scenario for future copper prices of $12,000 per tonne assumes that cyclical demand growth will only increase slightly during 2025 and 2026.

Resumption of US stock trading

• The three major US stock indices are close to flat, and Tesla rose nearly 5%

The three major US stock indices closed with mixed gains and losses. The Dow fell 0.03%, the NASDAQ rose 0.03%, and the S&P 500 index fell 0.04%.

Popular tech stocks had mixed ups and downs. Tesla rose nearly 5%, the biggest one-day gain since March 18. Meta and Nvidia fell about 1%, Arm rose more than 3%, and Google rose more than 1%.

Popular Chinese securities had mixed ups and downs, and the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.06%. Ideal Auto rose nearly 5%, Bilibili rose nearly 2%, and NetEase and Alibaba rose slightly. iQiyi and Baidu dropped more than 3%, while Vipshop dropped more than 1%.

• Tesla closed up nearly 5%, analysts say investors should stay calm

$Tesla (TSLA.US)$CEO Musk made a big announcement that a robotaxi (Robotaxi) product will be released on August 8, but no other details were provided. Promises to launch fully autonomous cars have long been the key to Tesla's high valuation. However, some analysts believe that judging from Tesla's consistent voting style, Musk's move was actually intended to create topics to raise stock prices, and investors should keep calm. By the close, Tesla was up nearly 5%.

• Musk predicts AI is expected to surpass the smartest humans next year

On Monday local time,$Tesla (TSLA.US)$CEO Elon Musk predicts that artificial intelligence (AI) may be smarter than the smartest humans by next year or 2026. When asked about the development timeline of General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), Musk said, “If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest humans, I think it will probably be next year (realized), that is, within two years.”

• Microsoft officially announced the establishment of an AI center in London

$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$It was announced on the official blog that the company will establish a new Microsoft Artificial Intelligence Center in London, England, as a new base for the new division “Microsoft AI” (Microsoft AI). According to the press release, the new center, led by Microsoft's senior AI scientist and engineer Jordan Hoffman, will work closely with Microsoft's AI team and partners such as OpenAI to promote pioneering work, advance the most advanced language models and infrastructure, and create world-class tools for the basic model.

• Eli Lilly invests US$2.5 billion to build a new plant in Germany

$Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.US)$It was announced that it will invest $2.5 billion to build a new plant near Frankfurt to expand its weight loss drug production capacity. Eli Lilly pointed out that the new plant is expected to start construction this summer and will focus on the production of injectable drugs and syringe pens. The plant is expected to be completed in 2027 and delivery to the global market will begin. Furthermore, the new plant is expected to create up to 1,000 jobs, covering production, R&D, etc.

• TSMC will set up a third fab in Arizona. Taiwan's economic department: production capacity in Taiwan still exceeds 80%

$Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$It was announced that it has received a direct subsidy of 6.6 billion US dollars from the US Chip Act and plans to establish a third fab in Arizona. The Taiwanese government's economic department said that Taiwan is TSMC's most important base. Even with a global layout plan, Taiwan's production capacity will remain 80% to 90%, and the direction of Taiwan's key focus of production remains unchanged.

Top 20 US stock turnover

Hong Kong Market Outlook

• Beishui buys over HK$400 million from China Mobile

On April 8 (Monday), Southbound made a net purchase of HK$4.749 billion in Hong Kong stocks.

$CHINA MOBILE (00941.HK)$,$TENCENT (00700.HK)$,$XIAOMI-W (01810.HK)$Received net purchases of HK$449 million, HK$263 million and HK$247 million respectively;

$SMIC (00981.HK)$,$HUANENG POWER (00902.HK)$,$EAST BUY (01797.HK)$Net sales were HK$250 million, HK$116 million, and HK$53.27 million respectively.

Today's attention

Keywords: US NFIB Small Business Confidence Index; China's M2 money supply annual rate, new RMB loans, scale of social financing

On Tuesday, in terms of economic data, the US will announce the March NFIB Small Business Confidence Index; from April 9 to April 15, China will occasionally release financial data such as new RMB loans for March, the annual M2 money supply rate for March, and the scale of social financing for March; and Hong Kong, China will announce foreign exchange reserves for March.

The scale of social financing in China increased by 1.56 trillion yuan in February, and added RMB 1.45 trillion in loans in February, of which medium- and long-term corporate loans increased by 1.29 trillion yuan. At the end of February, the broad currency (M2) balance was 299.56 trillion yuan, up 8.7% year on year. Zhang Jingjing's team at China Merchants Securities believes that insufficient financing demand continues. Affected by the high base for the same period last year, the year-on-year decline in new credit in March was significant.

In terms of IPOs, US stocks$CDT Environmental Technology (CDTG.US)$It will go on sale today.

Futubull Chen read:

Interest rates are like a gravitational pull for investment.

—Warren Buffett

editor/tolk