Hot news

• The Federal Reserve's hawkish attack! Hopes for interest rate cuts this year are getting slimmer

On Thursday, New York Federal Reserve Chairman Williams, known as the “top three in the Federal Reserve,” said that he did not feel the urgency of cutting interest rates yet. He warned that if the data showed that the Fed needed to raise interest rates to achieve the target, then the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates. Atlanta Federal Reserve Chairman Bostic also said he is open to raising interest rates if US inflation rises. Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chairman Kashkari said that the Federal Reserve needs to have more confidence in falling inflation before cutting interest rates, and may postpone interest rate cuts until 2024. The first rate cut “may” not be appropriate until next year.

• President Xiaomo: It is more likely that the Federal Reserve will not cut interest rates this year

J.P. Morgan Chase President Daniel Pinto said that given the high level of inflation, the Federal Reserve may not cut interest rates at all this year. Pinto said that the Federal Reserve may have to wait a little longer to cut interest rates, but the possibility of raising interest rates is very, very low. He believes that the Federal Reserve will not rush to act now because cutting interest rates too soon will have painful consequences and may lead to a recession.

• The month-on-month decline in existing home sales in the US in March was the biggest in more than a year

On Thursday, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), existing home sales in the US fell month-on-month in March, breaking away from the most recent year's high set in February, highlighting the impact of high mortgage interest rates and high housing prices on the US real estate market. According to specific data, existing home sales fell 4.3% month-on-month in March, the biggest monthly decline since November 2022. The expected decline was 4.1%, and the pre-February value surged 9.5%.

• US bond yields are booming, and Wall Street warns that a “return to the 5% era” may be “returned to the 5% era” in the short term

According to media reports on Thursday, Wall Street has warned that the 10-year US Treasury yield is at risk of jumping back to 5%. Ales Koutny, head of interest rates at asset management giant Vanguard, said, “We are now in a dangerous zone. A yield breaking through the 4.75% key level could trigger a large-scale sell-off, which will push the yield to a high of 5% in 2007.” Thierry Wizman, Macquarie's global forex and interest rate strategist, believes that the 5% yield level “may be within reach within the next few weeks.”

• Samoa: The US dollar will continue to maintain its status as an international reserve currency

Analysts at Morgan Stanley Research said in a report that the US dollar is expected to continue as a major reserve currency despite the challenges posed by an increasingly multipolar world. Damo said in the latest report that the US dollar's dominant reserve currency position is expected to continue. This should provide long-term support for the US dollar, and the US dollar's influence on the global economy is still strong in terms of a series of economic and financial indicators.

Resumption of US stock trading

• The S&P and NASDAQ fell for five days in a row, and Tesla fell more than 3%

Of the three major indices, only the Dow closed higher, while the S&P and NASDAQ both recorded five consecutive daily declines. By the close, the Dow was up 0.06%, the NASDAQ was down 0.52%, and the S&P 500 was down 0.22%.

Most popular technology stocks fell. Tesla fell more than 3%, a new closing low since January 2023. Microsoft and Amazon fell more than 1%, and Meta rose more than 1%.

Semiconductor concept stocks generally closed down, with TSMC falling about 5%, Micron falling about 4%, ultra-microcomputers falling more than 3%, and Asmack falling more than 2%.

Popular Chinese securities generally rose, and the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.99%. Tencent Music, NetEase, and NIO rose more than 2%, Ideal Auto, Baidu, and JD rose more than 1%, and Xiaopeng Motors fell more than 3%.

• 5% drop after the market! Netflix added 9.33 million new subscribers, doubling from expectations, but suggests a slowdown in growth

$Netflix (NFLX.US)$Q1 revenue was US$9.37 billion, with analysts' expectations of US$9.26 billion; earnings per share of US$5.28, analysts expected US$4.52; the net increase in the number of paid streaming users was 9.33 million, and analysts expected an increase of 4.84 million. Some analysts say that due to the company's warning that “typical seasonal factors will cause the increase in users in the second quarter to be lower than in the first quarter,” this suggests that the positive trend in user growth will slow down. As of press time, Netflix fell about 5% after the market.

• Performance guidance was mixed, TSMC plummeted, Wall Street: Not afraid! The advantages of AI are huge under the wave

TSMC announced first-quarter results that slightly exceeded market expectations, but executives mentioned weak demand for traditional servers and automotive chips. The output value growth forecast for the global foundry industry was adjusted from 20% in January to 14% to 19% this year, and TSMC failed to jump capital expenditure expectations. However, Xiaomo said that although TSMC failed to raise capital expenditure expectations, there is still room for future capital expenditure increases as the 2-nm process accelerates. Goldman Sachs said it is expected that TSMC's package testing capabilities will double again in 2025. By the close, TSMC was down nearly 5%.

• Tesla's price target has been drastically cut! Barclays: Next week's earnings report and conference call are “headwinds”

In the latest report, Barclays will$Tesla (TSLA.US)$The target share price was cut 20% from $225 to $180, and its “neutral” rating was maintained. The bank believes that Tesla's upcoming first-quarter earnings report will be a negative catalyst for the stock. By the close, Tesla was down more than 3%.

• Google says it's integrating teams focused on building models

According to a notice sent to employees on Thursday,$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$/$Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$It said it is undertaking structural reforms to its artificial intelligence team to simplify and speed up development. Google is integrating teams focused on building models.

• Meta releases Llama 3, the strongest open source model

$Meta Platforms (META.US)$Llama 3, its most powerful open source artificial intelligence (AI) model, has been launched to catch up with industry leader OpenAI. Meta CEO Zuckerberg claims that Llama 3 has two versions, 8B and 70B, and that the larger version of Llama 3 will have more than 400 billion parameters. Llama 3 is a huge improvement over Llama 2 due to pre-training and fine-tuning instructions. By the close, Meta was up more than 1%.

• Second highest in history! Berkshire issued bonds to raise 263.3 billion yen, or prepare stocks to increase investment in Japanese stocks

On Thursday local time, the “stock god” Warren Buffett's$Berkshire Hathaway-A (BRK.A.US)$/$Berkshire Hathaway-B (BRK.B.US)$The amount of yen bonds issued was determined, and a total of 263.3 billion yen (about 1.71 billion US dollars) was raised. Looking vertically, this is the second-largest transaction among the eight Japanese yen bonds issued by Berkshire in history, after the first issuance of 430 billion yen bonds in 2019, triggering speculation that it may further increase its holdings of Japanese stocks.

Top 20 US stock turnover

Hong Kong Market Outlook

• For the fourth day in a row, Beishui bought Tencent over HK$3 billion

On April 18 (Thursday), Southbound made a net purchase of HK$6.638 billion in Hong Kong stocks.

$TENCENT (00700.HK)$,$TRACKER FUND OF HONG KONG (02800.HK)$,$BANK OF CHINA (03988.HK)$Received net purchases of HK$945 million, HK$858 million and HK$633 million respectively;

$MEITUAN-W (03690.HK)$,$PETROCHINA (00857.HK)$,$CNOOC (00883.HK)$Net sales were HK$187 million, HK$60.35 million and HK$33.8 million respectively.

It is worth noting that Beishui has increased its holdings in Tencent for four consecutive days, adding more than HK$3 billion in total.

Today's attention

Keywords: Federal Reserve Officials Speeches, P&G/ American Express Performance

On Friday, Chicago Federal Reserve Chairman Goulsby participated in a question-and-answer session on financial events.

In terms of financial reports,$Procter & Gamble (PG.US)$,$American Express (AXP.US)$Earnings will be released before the US stock market.

Futubull Chen read:

Starting to save money and invest early is a good habit worth forming.

—Warren Buffett

editor/tolk