In the early morning of the 15th, Beijing time, US stocks continued to rise at the end of Monday, and the Dow and S&P 500 indices reached new intraday record highs. A number of important corporate earnings reports will be released one after another this week. The market is also watching the US presidential election, rising US bond yields, the uncertainty of the Federal Reserve's easing policy, and geopolitical risks in the Middle East. The ECB will announce interest rate decisions this week.

The Dow rose 218.80 points, or 0.51%, to 43082.66 points; the NASDAQ rose 180.49 points, or 0.98%, to 18523.43 points; and the S&P 500 rose 48.22 points, or 0.83%, to 5863.25 points.

On Monday afternoon, the Dow rose to a high of 43111.49 points, and the S&P 500 index rose to a high of 5865.39 points, all of which reached record intraday highs.

The US stock earnings season, which has just begun, became the focus. A number of companies announced financial reports this week. These corporate earnings reports will be the key to testing whether the stock market's rebound can continue.

Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Johnson & Johnson will announce their latest results on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley and United Airlines will release earnings reports on Wednesday. TSMC, Walgreens in partnership with Bosch, Netflix, and Procter & Gamble are also planning to release earnings this week.

On Friday, both J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo announced that their results exceeded expectations, opening the third quarter earnings season for US stocks on a high note. Earnings reports from these banks show a recovery in the banking sector's profits, which helped push the market to a record high last weekend. The S&P 500 closed above 5,800 points for the first time, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average also hit a record high.

Although US stocks have climbed to record highs, investors are still anxious against the backdrop of the fiercely competitive presidential election three weeks later, rising US Treasury yields, uncertainty about the pace of the Federal Reserve's easing policy, and the escalation of geopolitical risks in the Middle East.

Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said that despite this, “the four major Manulife factors (economic stimulus, elastic growth, declining currency, and healthy corporate performance) still exist. They are strong enough to overcome high valuations and geopolitical risks to keep the S&P 500 index on an upward trajectory.”

Excluding reinvested dividends, the S&P 500 is up about 22% year to date. The bull market has entered its second year, and since hitting a two-year low in October 2022, the benchmark index has risen by a total of about 63%. US Treasury yields have also risen over the past few weeks. The yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, the benchmark for calculating interest rates on everything from mortgages to car loans, surged above 4.1% last week.

As the prospects for the Federal Reserve's path to cutting interest rates became more uncertain, bond investors began to take defensive measures. The higher-than-expected inflation data and weak labor market data released last week caused traders to cut their bets on how much the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates for the rest of 2024, while also pushing US bond yields to their highest level since July.

Traders have ruled out the possibility that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 50 basis points in November. Earlier data showed that US consumer prices were slightly higher than expected in September, and recent economic data also showed a strong labor market.

After investors lifted their positions surrounding the US election this summer, they are now looking for betting opportunities. There are reports that traders are starting to return to the so-called “Trump deal.”

Goldman Sachs's trading team expects that if Trump wins the election, a basket of stocks selected by the bank closely related to Republican policy will fluctuate greatly.

“The sensitivity of our Republican policy outperforming stocks to election events since this summer indicates that if Trump wins the presidential election and his predictIT probability rises to 100%, then these stocks could rise 8%,” the Goldman Sachs trading team, which includes Faris Mourad, wrote in the report.

In intense competition for the presidency and Congress, Harris and Trump offered vastly different views on trade, government spending, and the economy. Companies operating in different countries are dealing with a variety of situations — including big wins by Republicans or Democrats — that could cause sharp exchange rate fluctuations like when Trump was first elected eight years ago.

The Republican Party's outperforming stock basket includes financial stocks such as regional banks that benefit from deregulation, stocks with cryptocurrency exposure, stocks related to energy and commodities, and stocks related to localization and domestic security

In terms of data, retail sales for September and industrial production data for September will be released this Thursday, and reports on new housing starts and construction permits for September will be released on Friday.

In the coming week, the US monthly retail sales report, known as “horror data,” will lead the economic calendar, and investors will evaluate whether the economy will accelerate again after an unexpectedly strong employment report in September.

Individual stocks in focus

Nvidia CEO Hwang In-hoon announced that BlackWell chips have been fully put into production, and market demand is strong. The Morgan Stanley report also supports this optimism, stating that business and prospects are still strong even after 12 months of orders scheduled.

Hwang In-hoon said on Sunday that he hopes Nvidia can deploy 0.1 billion AI assistants in the future to further increase the company's productivity. At the same time, he also stressed that this will not cause the company to lay off employees. He said, “I hope Nvidia will one day become a company with 0.05 million employees and 0.1 billion AI assistants across all departments of the company.”

Tesla launched Robotaxi called Cybercab last week. This driverless taxi follows the stainless steel case of the Cybertruck (Tesla electric pickup), abolishes the traditional steering wheel, pedals, and rearview mirror, and claims that it will use an inductive charger for wireless charging. The overall design is very advanced. At the beginning of the event, Musk personally rode the Cybercab through the filming site and showed the audience the actual operation results.

In addition to Cybercab, Musk also showcased a driverless van called Robovan. The car has a futuristic look, has no visible wheels, can carry up to 20 people, and can also be used to provide automatic ride-hailing services.

AMD officially unveiled the 5th generation EPYC server processor codenamed “Turin” - the EPYC 9005 series at the “Generating AI2024” conference held in San Francisco last Thursday. With the help of the new “Zen5” architecture and the widely deployed SP5 platform, the fifth-generation EPYC server chip achieved a series of record-breaking performance and efficiency performances, thereby effectively supporting the growing market demand in the enterprise, AI, and cloud computing fields.

Broker TD Cowen gave AMD a buy rating for the first time, with a target price of $210.

Apple's PC shipments fell 24.2% year over year to 5.3 million units in the third quarter, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). At the same time, Canalys data also shows that Apple's PC shipments during the same period were 5.1 million units, a year-on-year decline of 17.5%.

According to industry reports, Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S experienced serious sales difficulties, and its September sales plummeted 58% year over year. Although the Xbox Series X|S had good results in the early stages in the European market, sales declined steadily thereafter. Judging from the game console sales forecast report recently released by Microsoft, this trend is not expected to change.

According to reports, Google has asked a California federal judge to suspend a comprehensive court order requiring it to open the app store to more competitors during its appeal. Last Friday night, Google said in a court filing that US District Judge James Donato's ban will take effect on November 1, which will hurt the company's interests and pose “serious security and privacy risks” to the Android ecosystem. A judge issued an injunction on October 7 in response to a lawsuit brought by game maker Epic Games. Last year, Epic Games convinced a federal jury that Google has an illegal monopoly on how consumers download apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions.

Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta Platforms, confirmed to the media previous news that the company is canceling a high-end headset released in 2027 and is developing another ultra-lightweight headset.

Boeing announced last week that it would lay off workers globally. The company lost around $30 billion in five years.

Buffett is once again increasing his holdings in the satellite broadcasting company Sirius XM.

MicroStrategy shares are higher. Bitcoin's pro-Trump victory expectations have increased, driving Bitcoin above $65,000 on Monday.