Hot news

• US Treasury Secretary Yellen: Don't worry about GDP data, subtly respond “if Japan interferes in the foreign exchange market”

US Treasury Secretary Yellen attended a live event on Thursday to express her latest opinions on issues such as the US economy and foreign central bank intervention in foreign exchange markets. Facing the GDP data released on Thursday, Yellen said bluntly that she believes that the US economy continues to perform very, very well. The nominal data may be a little lower, but this will not change the strength of the economic foundation. Yellen gave a delicate response to “how you think Japan might take steps to interfere with the depreciation of the yen.” She said, “Adjusting exchange rates through the market is one way countries can have different policies. For countries that have a decisive influence on the foreign exchange market, intervention should only be carried out in extremely rare cases.”

• “New Federal Reserve News Agency”: The Fed's dream of cutting interest rates is far away

Nick Timiraos, a financial journalist known as the “New Federal Reserve News Agency,” wrote that recent inflation trends in the US have caused investors and Fed officials to reconsider whether it is appropriate to cut interest rates this year. The US economic activity report released on Thursday brought investors and Federal Reserve policy makers the latest unpleasant reminder. They expect economic growth to slow down and inflation to cool down to allow the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates this summer, but the opposite is true of inflation.

• Wall Street analysts expect the Fed to cut interest rates once in September, and stock market volatility will rise in September and October

Howard Lutnick, CEO of the well-known American financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, believes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates once before this year's presidential election. He believes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates once in September, and that Fed officials will help Biden slightly. If Biden is successfully re-elected, the Federal Reserve officials may be nominated again in the future. Lutnick expects that around September and October, the volatility of the US stock market will increase due to uncertainty about the election results.

Resumption of US stock trading

• The three major indices collectively closed down. Nvidia bucked the market and rose nearly 4%, while Google rose more than 16% after the market

The S&P 500 closed down 0.46% on Thursday, the Nasdaq index down 0.64%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.98%. There are two main reasons for the decline in US stocks: the sharp decline in Meta and the nuisance of economic data raised concerns that the Federal Reserve would delay interest rate cuts.

Among the “Big Seven” of technology, Apple rose 0.51%, Microsoft fell 2.45%, Amazon fell 1.65%, META fell 10.56%, Google-A fell 1.97%, Tesla rose 4.97%, and Nvidia rose 3.71%. At one point, Google rose more than 16% after the market, and Microsoft rose more than 4%.

The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.75%, continuing its four-day rise this week. Alibaba rose 0.64%, Baidu rose 0.72%, Pinduoduo fell 1.38%, JD rose 1.13%, NetEase rose 0.11%, Ideal Auto fell 1.68%, and Xiaopeng Motor rose 0.07%.

• Google paid its first dividend. Q1 revenue, advertising, and cloud revenue all accelerated, and soared by more than 16% after the market

$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$In the first quarter, revenue grew the fastest in two years, and profits surged 60%, betting on AI's capital expenditure of 12 billion US dollars. The growth of the cloud business accelerated again to a high of 28% at the beginning of last year. Its operating profit soared fourfold, and advertising revenue improved steadily. The company also paid a quarterly dividend for the first time in history, and will repurchase up to $70 billion in additional shares. The stock surged more than 16% after the market, and as of press time, it had risen more than 11%.

• AI helped Microsoft's first-quarter earnings report exceed expectations across the board. Cloud revenue grew faster and rose more than 4% after the market

After the US stock market on Thursday, April 25th,$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$The financial report for the third fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2024 (that is, the first quarter of the 2024 natural year) has been released, which will cover the first full quarter sales of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Generative Artificial Intelligence Assistant since it was launched for commercial customers in November last year. AI-driven growth caused Microsoft's key financial indicators and businesses to fully exceed expectations for the quarter. Among them, overall Microsoft cloud revenue increased 23% year over year to US$35.1 billion, smart cloud revenue increased 21% to US$26.7 billion, and Azure revenue accelerated quarter by quarter, causing the stock price to rise more than 4% after the market.

• Warning: Recovery was slow. Intel's profit and revenue guidance for the second quarter was poor. At one point, it fell more than 9% after the market

First quarter$Intel (INTC.US)$Revenue surpassed expectations by 9%, and EPS profit and gross margin were also higher than expected, but guidance for the second quarter fell short of expectations. The foundry business was “independent” in the first financial report, with losses of 2.5 billion US dollars in the first quarter, almost doubling from the previous quarter. This means that it will not be easy for Intel to reclaim its position as the king of chips, and the recovery process may be slower than Wall Street expected. As of press time, the stock fell nearly 8% after the market.

• Apple “fell to the throne”? Bank of America: Still the first choice for investing in 2024 technology stocks

Recently riddled with negativity$Apple (AAPL.US)$The financial results for the second fiscal quarter will be announced next Thursday. The Bank of America recently released a report saying that Apple's revenue and earnings per share for the second fiscal quarter are expected to be higher than market expectations, but due to still weak demand, it is expected that the third fiscal quarter results guidance may be lowered; however, the Bank of America pointed out that the acceleration in AI and the service business continue to accelerate growth, making Apple still the first choice for investing in technology stocks in 2024. Bank of America continued to maintain its target price at $225 and raised Apple's revenue and earnings per share expectations for fiscal year 2024.

• Micron receives $6.1 billion in US government subsidies

$Micron Technology (MU.US)$It was confirmed on Thursday that it will receive $6.1 billion in funding from the US federal government to build three chip manufacturing plants. In addition to this grant, Micron is also eligible for the US Treasury's investment tax credit, which will provide a 25% credit for qualifying capital investments. Additionally, the New York state government will provide $5.5 billion worth of incentives.

• The world's largest gold stock led the S&P 500 component stocks in gains

As of Thursday's close, the world's largest gold mining company$Newmont (NEM.US)$It rose 12.46% after the release of the financial report, ranking first among the S&P 500 constituent stocks. Due to the rapid rise in international gold prices, the company's average gold sales price in the Q1 quarter was 2,090 US dollars/ounce, 136 US dollars higher than the average price in 2023. Gold sales also rose from 2.3 billion US dollars in the same period last year to 3.3 billion US dollars.

• BHP Billiton offers £31 billion to acquire British and American resources. The news says “the offer is unattractive”

According to Thursday's latest news,$BHP Group Ltd (BHP.US)$towards$ANGLO AMERI PLC (NGLOY.US)$The proposed full share exchange offer gave the company an offer of 25.08 pounds per share, corresponding to 31.38 US dollars/share, equivalent to an offer of 31 billion pounds. However, according to people familiar with the matter, Anglo-American Resources Group did not find this offer attractive.

• Dragged down by vehicle depreciation, Hertz Car Rental plummeted 19%

$Hertz Global (HTZ.US)$The day closed down 19.31% on Thursday, setting a new record low for the stock price. The adjusted EBITDA disclosed in the company's quarterly report was -567 million US dollars, which was mainly affected by vehicle depreciation of US$588 million, of which US$195 million involved electric vehicles for sale by the company. Hertz Rent-a-Car invested heavily in electric vehicles in 2021, ordering 100,000 Tesla cars. Due to high maintenance costs, the company announced in January this year the sale of one-third of its entire fleet of electric vehicles and the purchase of fuel vehicles.

• Cybersecurity unicorn Rubrik rose more than 15% on the first day of launch

On Thursday local time, California Cloud Data Management and Data Security Company$Rubrik (RBRK.US)$Successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the company began trading with an IPO price of 32 US dollars higher than the issue price range, and finally closed at 37 US dollars. The closing price increase reached 15.62%, and the market value reached 6.4 billion US dollars. Microsoft invested in the company in 2021, with a reported valuation of $4 billion at the time.

Top 20 US stock turnover

Hong Kong Market Outlook

• Beishui raised more than HK$500 million from the Bank of China and sold Meituan for nearly HK$800 million

On April 25 (Thursday), Southbound made a net purchase of HK$1.88 billion in Hong Kong stocks.

$BANK OF CHINA (03988.HK)$,$HKEX (00388.HK)$,$TENCENT (00700.HK)$Received net purchases of HK$524 million, HK$407 million and HK$222 million respectively;

$MEITUAN-W (03690.HK)$,$HSBC HOLDINGS (00005.HK)$,$PING AN (02318.HK)$Net sales were HK$796 million, HK$422 million and HK$116 million respectively.

Today's attention

Keywords：Bank of Japan interest rate decision; US core PCE; ExxonMobil

On Friday, in terms of economic data, the inflation indicators that the Federal Reserve is most concerned about in March, the March Core PCE, the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index, and the US inflation rate forecast will be released.

In terms of financial events, the Bank of Japan will announce the interest rate decision today, and the Bank of Japan Governor will then hold a monetary policy press conference.

In terms of financial reports,$Exxon Mobil (XOM.US)$The results were announced in advance of the US stock market.

Futubull Chen read:

Only individual stocks with good performance will have strong resistance to falling.
—William Gann

edit/ruby