On the evening of the 23rd Beijing time, US stocks opened higher on Thursday. The NASDAQ reached a record high, and Nvidia surpassed $1,000 for the first time in history. Nvidia's earnings report strengthened the market's confidence that the AI boom will continue to drive the stock market, and the market continues to pay attention to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy prospects. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the US for the first time last week recorded the biggest drop since September.

As of press release, the NASDAQ was up 0.68%, the S&P 500 was up 0.21%, and the Dow down 0.49%.

Nvidia, a leader in the chip and artificial intelligence sector, announced its much-publicized first-quarter earnings report. Its performance far exceeded market expectations, further demonstrating the unabated momentum of the AI boom. Revenue increased 262% year over year to US$26.044 billion. Data center revenue increased 427% year over year to US$22.6 billion, with market expectations of US$22.1 billion, a record high. Net profit increased 628% year over year to US$14.881 billion.

At the same time, Nvidia also announced a stock split plan of 1 split of 10.

The company expects revenue of US$28 billion for the second fiscal quarter, which is higher than the average estimate of US$26.61 billion from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) survey. This is an indication that Nvidia does not see strong performance growth slowing down. The market expects the company to earn $5.95 per share for the second fiscal quarter.

Nvidia's earnings report has become the focus of market attention as investors look forward to seeing the enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) unabated.

Currently, Nvidia's market capitalization has exceeded 2.3 trillion US dollars, which has a significant impact on the S&P 500 index.

Robert Alster, chief investment director at Close Brothers Asset Management, said, “For anyone who doubts that artificial intelligence and supply chain growth are fading, Nvidia's performance, tone, and guidance completely refute this argument.”

Pascal Koeppel, chief investment officer at Vontobel Swiss Financial Advisors, said, “Nvidia's data is excellent, but now the market is very narrow. You can only invest in one industry. Judging from history, it is very risky to invest in just one industry.”

Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, said, “Although the market's expectations for Nvidia are already high, the company has once again handed over an impressive performance report. Revenue from the data center business, which has always been important, is still strong, and expectations for future revenue are impressive. Profit expectations were also high, but the company still exceeded them.”

US stocks closed down on Wednesday. The minutes of the last monetary policy meeting released by the Federal Reserve showed that Fed officials are concerned that inflation is sticky. Interest rate makers believe that it will take longer than previously anticipated for the inflation rate to return to the target level of 2%.

The minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting caused the market to worry that the Federal Reserve might delay cutting interest rates. The CEO of Goldman Sachs even predicted that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates this year.

Regarding the minutes of this meeting, reporter Nick Timiraos, known as the “New Federal Reserve News Agency,” wrote that the US inflation data for three consecutive months released as of April was disappointing, and the reduction in inflation was a setback. Therefore, Fed officials expect to wait longer to cut interest rates, and some officials are still open to raising interest rates when inflation is rising at an accelerated pace.

He said that the Federal Reserve officials concluded that the current high interest rates need to be maintained longer than they had anticipated. They still believe that interest rates are high enough to curb economic activity and reduce inflation, but they suggest that the extent of policy restrictions is not that certain. However, it was pointed out at the end of the article that the April inflation data released by the Federal Reserve after the meeting suggests that price pressure has not yet accelerated again, which makes people feel more at ease about the prospect that the Federal Reserve will not need to raise interest rates again.

In terms of economic data on Thursday, the US Department of Labor reported that in the week ending May 18, the number of first-time jobless claims in the US fell by 8,000, the biggest drop since September last year. The total number dropped to 215,000. The median forecast was 220,000 people.

The previous week, the US had a similar drop in data on first-time unemployment claims. As of May 11, the number of people who continued to receive unemployment benefits was 1.79 million, which is basically the same as the previous figure.

Individual stocks in focus

Chip stocks strengthened collectively. Nvidia surged more than 9%, AMD rose nearly 4%, Micron and Arm rose about 3%, and TSMC, Qualcomm, and Broadcom rose nearly 2%.

Most popular Chinese securities fell, with Xiaopeng and NIO falling more than 7%, Shell falling more than 6%, Ctrip, Ideal, and Bilibili falling more than 4%, and Pinduoduo bucked the trend and rising more than 4%.

In terms of individual stocks,$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$After the results, it rose more than 9%, and the stock price reached the $1,000 mark. The Q1 earnings report completely exceeded market expectations, and the stock split plan was officially announced.

$Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US)$It surged more than 9%, and Bank of America reaffirmed its “buy” rating.

$PDD Holdings (PDD.US)$It rose more than 4%, surpassing Alibaba in total market capitalization.

editor/tolk