Source: Wall Street See
Authors: Fang Jiayao, Du Yu, Jiang Zihan, Li Xiaoyin
The minutes of the July Fed meeting suggested that a rate cut in September is very likely. The downward revision of non-farm payrolls for the year ending in March was the deepest in fifteen years, fueling bets on a significant rate cut. After a midday dip, US stocks rebounded, with Nvidia and Tesla rising nearly 1%. Target jumped nearly 17% after its earnings report, while Macy's fell over 12%. The two-year US Treasury yield dropped by nearly 11 basis points, and the US dollar index briefly fell below its lowest level in 101 years. Gold briefly turned higher, while oil prices fell over 2% during midday trading.
After the release of revised US employment data, the three major US stock indexes extended their gains, with small cap and chip stocks up over 1.3%.
US stock indexes rose across the board and closed at the day's high: The S&P 500 closed up 0.42% at 5620.85 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed up 0.14% at 40890.49 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index closed up 0.57% at 17918.99 points. The Nasdaq 100 Index closed up 0.53%. The Nasdaq Technology Index (NDXTMC), which measures the performance of technology stocks in the Nasdaq 100, closed up 0.50%. The Russell 2000 Index closed up 1.32%. The VIX fear index rose 2.39% to 16.26.
US stock industry ETFs mostly closed higher. The Consumer Discretionary ETF and Semiconductor ETF were up over 1%, while the Internet Stock Index ETF and Utility ETF were up nearly 1%. The Daily Consumer Products ETF, Global Aviation Industry ETF, Technology Industry ETF, Regional Banks ETF, and Biotech Index ETF all rose at least 0.5%.
The 11 sectors of the S&P 500 index generally rose. The consumer discretionary sector rose 1.18%, the materials sector rose 1.15%, the information technology/technology sector rose 0.46%, the telecommunications sector rose 0.17%, and the energy sector fell 0.01%, while the financial sector fell 0.14%.
The 'Tech Seven Sisters' had mixed performance. NVIDIA and Tesla both rose 0.98%, Meta, the 'metaverse', rose 1.6%, Amazon rose 0.69%, while Google A fell 0.8%, Microsoft fell 0.16%, and Apple fell 0.05%.
It is worth noting that Matt Fischer, Vice President of Apple responsible for the App Store, will leave the company in October. The company is restructuring its organization to adapt to global regulatory changes.
Most chip stocks rose. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.38%; industry ETF SOXX rose 1.42%; NVIDIA 2x long ETF rose 1.78%. ON Semiconductor rose 1.13%, Qualcomm rose 1.23%, ASML Holding ADR rose 1.88%, KLA Corp rose 1.92%, Arm Holdings rose 0.96%, Intel rose 2%. Micron Technology rose 0.31%, AMD rose 0.9%, Applied Materials rose 1.44%, while Broadcom fell 0.1% and Taiwan Semiconductor ADR fell 0.35%.
Most AI concept stocks rose. BigBear.ai rose 27.07%, Dell Technologies rose 0.89%, CrowdStrike rose 2.51%, Palantir rose 0.68%, BullFrog AI rose 5.06%, C3.ai rose 0.98%, Super Micro Computer, the 'AI monster stock', rose 2.11%, Oracle rose 0.74%, Snowflake rose 2.38%, SoundHound AI, an AI voice company held by NVIDIA, rose 4.28%, while Serve Robotics, an AI robot delivery company held by NVIDIA, fell 4.63%.
Chinese concept stocks outperformed the US stock market. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index rose 2.39%. In terms of ETFs, the China Technology Index ETF (CQQQ) rose 1.33%. The China Concept Internet Index ETF (KWEB) rose 1.72%.
Among popular Chinese concept stocks, GDS Holdings saw an initial increase of about 17%, Vipshop rebounded more than 9%, ZTO Express rose 6%, while Xiaopeng, Ctrip, Li Auto, NIO, Boss Zhipin, EHang, H World Group, and Alibaba rose more than 3%.
After the release of the US EIA crude oil inventory data, WTI crude oil reached a daily high, rising nearly 1.4% to break through $74 per barrel, while Brent crude oil rose over 1.3% to $78.21 per barrel. However, due to the downward revision of US employment growth data and increased risk of a hard landing in the US economy, market pessimism about oil demand prospects offset the support from the decline in US petroleum stocks. Subsequently, WTI crude oil fell sharply below $72 per barrel, reaching a nearly six-month low:
WTI crude oil: WTI October crude oil futures fell $1.23, or more than 1.69%, to $71.93 per barrel. In early trading, US stocks continued their earlier upward trend. After the US EIA crude oil inventory data for the week of August 16 were released at 22:30 Beijing time, WTI crude oil reached a daily high, rising nearly 1.4% to break through $74 per barrel. However, it subsequently fell sharply, and after the US stock market fell more than 2.3% after noon, it dropped below $71.40 per barrel, hitting a new low since February.
Brent crude oil: Brent October crude oil futures fell $1.15, or nearly 1.49%, to $76.05 per barrel. The trend of Brent crude oil was similar to that of WTI crude oil. After the release of the US EIA crude oil inventory data, it reached a high of over 1.3% to $78.21 per barrel. After the US stock market fell more than 2% in the afternoon, it fell below the $76 per barrel level.
In terms of news, US EIA crude oil inventories decreased by more than 4.6 million barrels, exceeding analysts' expectations. On Wednesday at 22:30 Beijing time, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced that US crude oil inventories fell by 4.65 million barrels last week, compared to Bloomberg's estimate of a decrease of 3.41 million barrels and analysts' expectations of a decrease of 1.96786 million barrels. The previous value increased by 1.357 million barrels.
Natural gas: US September natural gas futures fell nearly 0.96% to $2.1770 per million British thermal units.
After the release of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, the expectation of a rate cut increased, boosting the price of gold as the US dollar and Treasury yields softened.
Gold: COMEX December gold futures rose 0.08% in the final trading session, to $2552.6 per ounce. Spot gold in the Asian market early trading session hit a daily high with an increase of over 0.2%, then turned lower. In early US stock trading, spot gold hit a daily low, dropping by nearly 0.8% to below $2500. At 10:20 pm, after the release of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, the gold price sharply rebounded and turned higher.
Silver: COMEX September silver futures rose 0.43% in the final trading session, to $29.645 per ounce. Spot silver in the US stock market early trading session hit a daily low, dropping by nearly 0.7% to $29.232, but after the release of the Federal Reserve meeting minutes, spot silver significantly rebounded and rose, hitting a daily high of over 1% to surpass $29.70.
As for other precious metals, platinum rose by 2.6% to $970.75, palladium rose by 2.7% to $951.00, reaching the highest level in over a month. Ford Motor announced the cancellation of plans for a three-row electric SUV model and delayed the launch of its new electric version of the best-selling pickup F-150, leading to a rise in metal prices for auto catalysts. Auto manufacturers use platinum and palladium in catalytic converters to reduce vehicle emissions.
London industrial base metals varied in prices. Copper ended up $56 at $9260 per tonne. London zinc rose by nearly 1.64%. London lead rose by approximately 1.56%. London tin rose by about 1.30%, while London aluminum fell by $15 and London nickel fell by $125.
Editor/Jeffy