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.

Nvidia, the stock with the highest trading volume on Wednesday, fell 5.12% and once again broke through the $100 threshold, with a total trading volume of $42.167 billion. Due to a design flaw, Nvidia's Blackwell chip may face a delay of three months or longer. However, analysts said the potential production delay will have a limited impact on the demand for Nvidia's AI chips. "Nvidia's competitive window is currently very large, and we believe that a three-month delay will not lead to a significant change in market share."

Tesla, ranked second, fell 4.43%, with a total trading volume of $13.945 billion. According to multiple local media reports, Tesla has made a strategic decision to abandon its plan to build a manufacturing plant in Thailand and instead focus on expanding its charging network in the country. Sources said that Tesla will not continue to move ahead with factory construction in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand or other countries besides China, the US, and Germany.

Apple, ranked third, was up 1.25%, with a total trading volume of $13.365 billion. Daiwa Securities predicted that Apple's Q3 results will exceed expectations. The bank raised Apple's target price from $210 to $230, maintaining an "outperform" rating; and raised Apple's 2024 EPS forecast from $6.64 to $6.73, and 2025 EPS from $7.35 to $7.6.

Recently, Apple's supplier strategy has once again shifted. According to media reports, Apple's shift to manufacturing in India has not gone smoothly, and it has decided to shift some of its production capacity back to China. Industry insiders said that this is a decision that Apple has had to make. China's supply chain has many advantages, including a mature supply chain system and relatively low labor costs. In addition, China's manufacturing industry is large in scale, with the ability to achieve large-scale production and cost reduction, and China now has strong technological innovation capabilities in the manufacturing industry.

Meta Platforms, ranked fourth, fell 1.05%, with a total trading volume of $9.974 billion. On Wednesday, Meta Platforms launched the "Self-Taught Evaluator," which uses synthetic data to train AI models to alleviate the problem of relying on human-annotated data to evaluate NLP technology.

In addition, Meta Platforms was the first to issue bonds in the US investment-grade market on Wednesday. According to insiders, Meta will sell bonds in five tranches for general corporate purposes. The 40-year bond in this issue has a yield that is expected to be 1.55% higher than that of US Treasuries.

Prior to the issue, the company reported better-than-expected Q2 results last week, indicating that its investment in AI is helping it sell more targeted ads.

Super Micro Computer, ranked fifth, fell 20.14%, with a total trading volume of $9.321 billion. According to Super Micro Computer's latest financial report, adjusted EPS for Q4 of fiscal 2024 (ended June 30) was $6.25, far below analysts' expected $8.07; gross margin was 11.2%, far below the previous quarter's 15.5% and analysts' expected 14.1%.

Some analysts have expressed concerns about the long-term profitability of companies such as Super Micro Computer, Dell Technologies and HP, which sell AI-optimized servers. As Super Micro Computer failed to achieve its profit target in the last quarter, such concerns may be exacerbated.

Microsoft fell 0.3% with a total trading volume of $8.194 billion on Wednesday. The company blamed Delta Air Lines' global network outage on its own flaws, stating that preliminary assessments showed that Delta Air Lines was apparently different from its competitors and had not modernized its IT infrastructure.

At the end of July, CrowdStrike, the global cybersecurity company, released a software update that caused system problems for Microsoft's customers, including many airlines. However, the next day, the situation of major US airlines' interruptions improved, while Delta Air Lines' interruptions continued--the network outage caused the company to cancel more than 6,000 flights.

Amazon, ranked seventh, was up 0.52%, with a total trading volume of $7.942 billion.

Broadcom, ranked ninth, fell 5.32%, with a total trading volume of $4.183 billion. The chip sector of the US stock market generally declined on Wednesday.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Class A shares, ranked tenth, rose 0.41%, with a total trading volume of $4.022 billion. Recently, Google lost a symbolically significant lawsuit. On August 5, the District Court for the District of Columbia in the US supported the Justice Department's position that Google illegally consolidated its search dominance.

The court ruled that Google violated the core antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in the United States, based on one of its key reasons, which is that the company pays huge fees to device giants such as Apple and Samsung every year to ensure that it becomes the default search engine. In 2021, Google paid a total of $26.3 billion for this.

Google has stated that it will appeal the decision.

Eli Lilly and Co., ranked 12th, fell 2.65% with a transaction volume of 3.402 billion USD. In the 2024 Fortune Global 500, there are a total of 14 pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly and Co. In 2023, Eli Lilly and Co.'s revenue was $34.124 billion, a 16.1% year-on-year decline, down to $5.24 billion in profits.

Shopify, ranked 14th, rose 17.83% with a transaction volume of 3.292 billion USD. The company's second-quarter revenue was $2.05 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 21%, exceeding the Bloomberg compiled analyst's expected $2 billion. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share were $0.26, higher than the expected $0.2. In the second quarter, Shopify's gross merchandise volume (GMV) increased by 22% to reach $67.2 billion, exceeding Wall Street's forecast of $65.7 billion. The gross margin for this quarter was 51.1%, compared to 49.3% for the same period last year. The stock has fallen by about 30% so far this year, but has more than doubled since 2023.

Airbnb fell 13.38%, the largest single-day decline since its listing in 2020, with a transaction volume of 3.261 billion USD. Airbnb's financial report showed that the booking volume for vacation rentals and travel experience services in the second quarter of this year only increased by 8.7% to 0.125 billion, lower than analysts' expectations. The company warned that the booking volume in the third quarter of this year will continue to "slow down month-on-month", while analysts expect that the peak travel season in summer will drive a growth of 11% in booking volume.

Airbnb attributed the continued pressure on performance to the fact that more and more Americans are adopting a more cautious attitude towards travel spending due to concerns about economic health.

This is the third consecutive quarter that Airbnb has provided investors with a pessimistic outlook. The latest data also means that the company is about to enter its slowest growth period since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.

Editor/Lambor