1. Tech giants regained momentum, Nvidia and Apple pushed the NASDAQ index to a new high, and S&P thrilled to hold the weekly “Wulianyang”; 2. Goldman Sachs upgraded Pinduoduo's rating to “buy,” leading Chinese securities e-commerce companies increased by more than 25% this month; 3. Google's AI search review sparked internet controversy due to “low-level errors”; 4. The FDA Advisory Committee gave Novo Nordisk a negative review of long-acting insulin.
Financial Services Association, May 24 (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) After experiencing a brief decline on the previous trading day, the trend of “grouping” large, overvalued technology stocks in the US stock market picked up again last night and this morning. The NASDAQ reached another record closing high, and the S&P 500 index recovered the 5,300 point mark, while maintaining the weekly “five consecutive positives” by a weak margin.
By Friday's close, the S&P 500 was up 0.7% to 5304.72 points, with a cumulative increase of 1.41% this week; the Nasdaq index rose 1.1% to 16920.79 points, with a cumulative increase of 0.03% this week; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.01% to 39069.59 points, down 2.33% this week.
(The S&P 500 ended the week with a slight increase of 0.03%, Source: Trading)
Of course, if you had to give Friday's rise a reason, the University of Michigan survey released before the market on Friday showed that American consumers expected a 3.3% price increase in the coming year, which is slightly lower than the 3.5% forecast at the beginning of this month. At the end of the day, the US stock market is still entangled in the momentum of technology stocks, and the “Federal Reserve anxiety” that comes up from time to time.
The Federal Reserve's favorite PCE inflation index will be updated next Friday. The market is also looking forward to signs of falling back in the April data, taking the “first step full of expectations” for the Fed to cut interest rates in the second half of this year. On Friday, a team of Goldman Sachs economists delayed the prediction of when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates for the first time this year from July to September. This is also close to mainstream expectations in the market.
Of course, for US stock traders, whether it's next week's inflation data or when they don't know when interest rate cuts will occur, they can now put it aside for a short time and concentrate on the “little vacation” for the next three days. Next Monday, the US stock market will be closed for Memorial Day. After returning from the holidays, the trading settlement rules for US stocks will also change from “T+2” to “T+1.”
The performance of popular stocks
The trend of US tech giants improved markedly on Friday. Apple rose 1.66%, Microsoft rose 0.74%, Amazon fell 0.17%, META rose 2.67%, Google-A rose 0.83%, and Tesla rose 3.17%.
The decline in China Securities also narrowed significantly. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.35%, Alibaba rose 0.57%, Baidu fell 1.13%, Pinduoduo rose 2.56%, JD fell 2.98%, NetEase fell 4.5%, NIO rose 0.62%, Ideal Auto rose 3.73%, and Xiaopeng Motor rose 1.23%.
Other news
[Google AI search review sparks internet controversy due to “low-level errors”]
The “AI Overviews” (AI Overviews) feature, which Google highlighted at last week's developer conference, was recently launched in the US market. However, since this feature frequently provides users with ridiculous answers, such as “add glue to pizza” and “eat at least 1 stone every day,” it has triggered mass ridicule from American netizens. Google responded that errors often come from “very rare queries” and that improvements will be made based on these “exceptions.”
[Eli Lilly adds US$5.3 billion to expand GLP-1 drug production capacity]
US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced on Friday that it will invest an additional 5.3 billion US dollars to expand production capacity at its Lebanese manufacturing site in Boone County, Indiana to meet market demand for the diet drug Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro. The active ingredients in both drugs are telpopeptides.
[The “air leak” is not a big problem! Boeing's “Starliner” will challenge manned test flights next week]
Due to problems with rockets and spacecraft being detected one after another, the manned test flight launch of the Boeing “Starliner”, which was originally scheduled to be carried out in early May, has been continuously delayed. Boeing and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed on Friday that the latest plan is to launch at 12:25 EST on June 1. The next alternative launch windows are June 2, June 5, and June 6, respectively. At the same time, the spacecraft's “small helium leak” problem discovered earlier does not need to be addressed for the time being; the spacecraft can operate under “air leaks.”
[Game Station's stock price soared after announcing the completion of the additional market]
After the market on Friday, the US “retail stock hacker” on behalf of GameStop announced that the IPO plan disclosed by the company last week has been completed, with gross revenue of nearly US$933.4 million before deducting commissions and issuance fees. The stock price of GameStop rose from 17 dollars to a maximum of 64 dollars in just two days in mid-May due to the stir caused by the recovery of the “Roaring Kitten” account. Faced with changes in stock prices, the company immediately announced the issuance of up to 45 million additional shares by “issuing at market price”.
According to the latest announcement, the average price of the additional sale of GameStop is $20.7, which is nearly double the average stock price last month. As of press release, GameStop surged 16.37% after the market.
[FDA Advisory Committee Gives Novo Nordisk Negative Evaluation of Long-acting Insulin]
On Friday local time, the FDA's external expert panel voted a 7-4 majority to negatively evaluate Novo Nordisk's long-acting insulin insulin icodec (injected subcutaneously once a week), believing that the benefits brought by the drug were insufficient to cover the risks. Some members raised concerns about the risk of hypoglycemia caused by the drug. Earlier this month, competitor Eli Lilly also announced the positive Phase III trial results of the two long-acting insulin Efsitora.
[Goldman Sachs raised Pinduoduo's rating to “buy”]
Goldman Sachs analysts Ronald Keung and David Ma pointed out in a report on Friday that due to the continued growth in Pinduoduo's advertising revenue and the rapid transformation of Temu's business model, they raised the group's profit forecast for 2024-2026 by 25-43%. At the same time, Goldman Sachs also raised Pinduoduo's rating from “neutral” to “buy,” and the target price was raised from 145 US dollars to 184 US dollars.
Driven by this news, Pinduoduo once rose more than 7% after opening on Friday, and finally closed up 2.56%. The cumulative increase for this month has reached 25%.