Source: Sina US Stocks On the evening of the 20th Beijing time, the US stocks opened mixed on Thursday, and then the three major indexes rose slightly. Nvidia hit another new high and consolidated its position as the largest market cap company in the US stock market. Initial jobless claims in the United States last week were higher than expected, and real estate and manufacturing indexes were below expectations. Until the manuscript was submitted, the S&P 500 index rose 0.29% to break through 5500 points, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.37%, and the Dow Jones Index rose 0.13%. The US stock market was closed on Wednesday due to the June holiday (Juneteenth). On Tuesday, the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq both set new historical highs. The US stock market is expected to record gains this week. The S&P 500 index set its 31st new high this year on Tuesday. Due to the continued AI craze and the resilience of economic growth, it is expected to continue to support corporate profits, especially in the technology sector. Nvidia's stock price hit another new high. The AI darling and chip maker surpassed Microsoft last Tuesday and became the world's most valuable company. Against the background of the continued AI craze boosting the stock market, Nvidia's stock price has risen 174% from 2024 to date. As Nvidia consolidates its position as a thriving market leader in the AI theme market, its market value has surpassed that of Apple in early June. "Nvidia is still the most important stock in the world," said Chris Weston, head of Pepperstone research, in a report. However, Weston warned that the overall performance of the index market was poor, and the market participation was mediocre, suggesting that the rise was built on an unstable foundation. "The fact remains that the market is still very bullish on AI-related stocks and large tech stocks, and given the lack of clear immediate risks, the path of least resistance is for stock indices to rise." While consumer spending has shown signs of slowing and hints at potential economic weakness, investors continue to flock to the AI giant. The rise of Nvidia has also boosted its peers. Chip maker Broadcom has surged more than 60% from 2024 to date. Scott Chronert, Citigroup's US stock strategy director, wrote in a report on Tuesday: "We still believe that Wall Street (the S&P 500) is diverging from the corporate sector (the foundation of the US economy), is this strange? There is no doubt that generative AI is currently infiltrating the US stock market environment as a sustained driver of growth." Nevertheless, some commentators have noted that while this doldrums has not yet fully affected the US stock market, which repeatedly sets new highs, the rise lacks breadth beyond the largest tech companies, and this situation may continue to deteriorate. Thomas Fitzpatrick, managing director of R.J. O'Brien and Associates, said, "There's a feeling of AI theme that's very similar to the 2000-2001 US stock style, but as we know, markets stay irrational longer than you stay solvent. But for now, it's hard to stop the speeding train." Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, said that due to three major unfavorable factors that will suppress stock prices, the US stock market will see a correction. This Wall Street veteran pointed out that so far this year, the stock market has performed strongly, with the S&P 500 index up 15% from 2024. However, he predicted that the benchmark index would fall 5% due to unfavorable interest rates, inflation, and stock valuations. The inflation rate is declining but still above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%, leading Fed officials to expect only one interest rate cut by year-end. As for Thursday's economic data, the initial claims for unemployment benefits in the United States were almost unchanged last week, and the data for the previous week rose sharply. These data tend to fluctuate before and after holidays and school vacations. Data released by the US Department of Labor on Thursday showed that as of June 15, the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits decreased by 5,000 to 238,000. The number of continued claims for unemployment benefits as of June 8 rose to 1.82 million. In the past year, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits has remained low as the labor market has shown resilience in the face of high prices and high interest rates. The four-week moving average of initial jobless claims rose to 232,750, the highest level since September last year.

On Wednesday, US stocks had the highest turnover.$Tesla (TSLA.US)$Rose 0.35% for the 11th consecutive trading day, hitting a new 7-month high with a turnover of US$33.808 billion.

Tesla has increased the prices of its Model 3 cars in European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain, by about 1,500 euros ($1,622), depending on the model.

Tesla's higher-than-expected delivery volume for Q2 2023 was one of the driving forces behind the continued rise in its stock price. The company delivered a total of 443,956 vehicles in Q2, exceeding Wall Street's previous expectation of 0.439 million vehicles. However, compared with the same period last year, the figure of 0.444 million vehicles still fell by about 4.8%. It should be pointed out that Tesla's Q1 delivery volume fell by more than 8.5% YoY, the last time the company has seen consecutive two quarters of YoY decline was in 2012.

A person in the industry chain said that Apple has increased the shipment target of the iPhone 16 series for the year to about 90 million units; Apple's sales during the 618 e-commerce promotion period have significantly increased, which may boost Apple's sales expectations for the iPhone 16 series. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in an investor report, "We believe that after performing better than expected in the first quarter, optimistic signs of iPhone growth are forming in various markets. Ultimately, we believe that the second quarter will be the last quarter of negative growth in the Chinese market, and the turning point for growth will begin in the third quarter. The Chinese market is still the key to Apple's growth, and we believe that this key region will once again achieve growth from the iPhone 16." Investment bank Piper Sandler raised its target price for Apple, but pointed out that much of the recent good news has been "reflected in the stock price." The analyst at the bank, Matt Farrell, raised the target price of Apple from $190 to $225 and rated the stock as "neutral." Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes maintained a buy rating for Apple and raised his target price from $227 to $260.

Bond king Gross commented: "Tesla's performance is like a Meme stock, with fundamentals continuously weakening, but the stock price is rising in a straight line."

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas maintains a buy rating on Tesla and a target price of $310.

The second.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$Nvidia, ranked second in trading volume, rose 2.69%, with a turnover of US$33.33 billion. KeyBanc analyst John Vinh raised Nvidia's target price from $130 to $180. According to media reports after the close of trading on Tuesday, Huang Renxun, CEO of Nvidia, cashed out $30.7 million.

The third.$Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$AMD, ranked third in trading volume, rose 3.87%, with a turnover of US$16.516 billion. AMD has agreed to acquire artificial intelligence model developer Silo AI for US$665 million in cash, hoping to narrow the gap with Nvidia in AI. The company said on Wednesday that the Silo AI team will join the company's artificial intelligence group, and the current CEO will continue to lead the team.

According to a statement released by AMD on Wednesday, Silo AI, headquartered in Helsinki, is the "largest private artificial intelligence laboratory in Europe," and its clients include Allianz Group, Unilever and Rolls-Royce under BMWYY.

Brokerage Keybank lowered AMD's target price to $220.

Ranked fourth.$Apple (AAPL.US)$Rose 1.88%, with a historic high in stock price and a turnover of US$14.508 billion. Apple has told suppliers and partners that the company plans to ship at least 90 million iPhone 16 devices in the second half of this year, which is expected to increase by 10% compared with the shipment volume of its predecessor iPhone 15. In the second half of 2023, the shipment volume of iPhone 15 is about 81 million units.

In addition, the sources also indicated that Apple is increasingly confident that some of the "Apple Intelligence" features (AI features) added to iPhone 16 will help boost demand.

According to the latest statistics from well-known research firm IDC, Apple's personal computer (PC) shipments in Q2 increased by 21% YoY, ranking first in YoY growth among major PC providers in Q2. This data can be regarded as the core part of the global PC market demand recovery trend, which has achieved YoY growth for two consecutive quarters, and the YoY growth rate in Q2 was twice that of Q1. IDC looks to the future trend of the PC market and believes that AI PCs will help terminal devices enter a new cycle of "upgrade and replacement."

IDC believes that AI PCs are expected to drive personal computers, which are terminal devices, into a new round of "upgrade and replacement cycle."

The fifth.$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$Rose 1.46%, with a turnover of US$8.445 billion. According to media reports, just as global regulatory agencies are tightening their scrutiny of tech giants' investment in artificial intelligence start-ups, Microsoft has decided to give up its observer seat on the board of OpenAI.

This decision was made after eight months of observation of OpenAI's governance structure and development direction. Microsoft believes that its role as an observer is no longer necessary because OpenAI has made significant progress.

The eighth.$Meta Platforms (META.US)$Rose 0.88%, with a turnover of US$5.865 billion.

Ranked tenth.$Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$Rose 3.54%, with a historic high in stock price and a turnover of US$3.652 billion. TSMC will release its financial report on July 18th (Thursday). Judging from the sales data already released by TSMC for the April-June period of 2024, TSMC's sales in Q2 increased by 40.1% YoY compared with the same period last year. Earlier, TSMC predicted in its April earnings call that Q2 sales would be $19.6 billion to $20.4 billion.

11th place$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$Rose 1.16%, with a turnover of US$3.042 billion. Google's parent company, Alphabet, has shelved plans to acquire customer relationship management company $HubSpot (HUBS.US)$Brokerage Keybanc raised Micron Technology's target price to $165.

The 12th.$Micron Technology (MU.US)$Rose 4%, with a turnover of US$3.026 billion.

Investment bank Raymond James stated that due to multiple factors such as artificial intelligence and geopolitics, semiconductor equipment spending is expected to grow by at least a single-digit percentage in 2025 and 2026. Analyst Srini Pajjuri said in a report, "Although the valuation is close to multi-year highs, we continue to believe the risk/reward is favorable and reiterate our positive stance on this type of stock." The analyst also added that Micron Technology's recent increase in capital spending suggests that future trends, such as memory and advanced logic capital spending, may be increased.

The other party involved in the above news.$HubSpot (HUBS.US)$Closing down 12.12% on Wednesday, with a transaction volume of $2.354 billion, was the 15th highest trading volume in the U.S. stock market on Wednesday.

The 18th ranked cybersecurity company.$CrowdStrike (CRWD.US)$Decreased by 2.96%, with a transaction volume of $2.17 billion. Investment bank Piper Sandler will downgrade its stock rating for CrowdStrike from "shareholding" to "neutral," but maintain its target price of $400. The bank stated that the company valuation is too high and lacks catalysts in the short term.

Analysts said that although they are still excited about the next steps for CrowdStrike because there are many incremental growth opportunities, given the stock's strong performance, the risk/reward is currently not favorable. They pointed out that CrowdStrike already has a high annual recurring revenue (ARR) and estimated fiscal year revenue, which will make it difficult to have any meaningful growth again because the "law of large numbers" should begin to affect overall growth rates. The analysts also added that while there are many opportunities for CrowdStrike in the future, "this is largely reflected in the current valuation level."

Editor/Lambor