Hot News

• On Monday's Pre-Market Trading, the three major indices of the USA stock market experienced a sharp decline.

• Growth Tech stocks fell broadly, with Tesla and Broadcom dropping nearly 2% in Pre-Market Trading.

• NVIDIA plans to release a new generation of humanoid robot computing platform in the first half of next year, supporting multimodal AI models.

According to foreign media, $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ it will officially launch the next generation of small computers specifically for humanoid robots, Jetson Thor, in the first half of 2025. NVIDIA's Vice President of Robotics, Deepu Talla, stated that the 'ChatGPT moment' for physical AI and robotics technology is approaching, and the market has reached a 'turning point.' NVIDIA defines itself as a leading platform for the robotics revolution and will sell full-stack solutions, including everything from the software layer for training AI robots to the built-in chips.

• Tesla dropped over 2% in Pre-Market Trading, and Analysts expect this year's delivery volume may be slightly lower than last year.

$Tesla (TSLA.US)$ Pre-Market Trading fell more than 2%, reported at $423. In terms of news, as 2024 is approaching its end, Tesla is expected to announce its fourth quarter delivery data within this week. Currently, Analysts generally anticipate Tesla's fourth quarter delivery volume to be around 0.511 million units, which would be higher than last year's 0.484 million units and the previous quarter's 0.463 million units. Considering the delivery volume for the first three quarters of this year, the total delivery volume for the year is expected to reach 1.805 million units, slightly lower than last year's 1.809 million units. Additionally, regarding the news that Cybertruck is set to officially go on sale domestically on January 1, 2025, Tesla China responded to the media saying, "false news, there are no such plans on January 1."

• Boeing Pre-Market Trading fell more than 3%, with frequent safety incidents involving the 737-800 passenger aircraft.

$Boeing (BA.US)$ Pre-Market Trading fell more than 3%, reported at $175.09. In terms of news, on December 29, a Korea Jeju Air passenger plane was involved in an accident, resulting in 179 deaths. It is reported that the Jeju Air aircraft in the accident was a Boeing 737-800 model. The 737 series, as Boeing's main aircraft model, is widely used globally. According to statistics, from 2000 to now, in the past 24 years, there have been a total of 26 accidents involving the Boeing 737 series aircraft (significant incidents resulting in fatalities), excluding incidents with injuries, averaging about 1.1 times per year.

• VeriSign Pre-Market Trading rose more than 2%, bolstered by "Oracle" Buffett increasing his shareholding.

$VeriSign (VRSN.US)$ Pre-Market Trading rose more than 2% reported at $209.2. In terms of news, according to the latest documents disclosed by the SEC, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has recently increased its investment in the Internet domain registration company VeriSign. Over the past week during three trading days, Berkshire spent an additional $28.55 million to further increase its shareholding in the company. Currently, Berkshire holds approximately 13.7% of VeriSign's shares, with a market cap close to $2.7 billion.

• Google CEO: Gemini will be the company's "biggest focus" in 2025.

$Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ CEO Pichai told employees in a strategy meeting that 2025 will be a "critical" year for the company. Currently, technology companies like Google are heavily investing in AI, but the results are mixed. Pichai admitted that the company has areas in AI where it needs to catch up. He stated that the Gemini application (based on the company's namesake AI model) has "strong momentum," while also acknowledging that, "we need to do some work in 2025 to narrow the gap and establish leadership there." He remarked in the meeting: "Next year, scaling Gemini for consumers will be our biggest focus."

• Reports indicate that Taiwan Semiconductor will further raise advanced process and CoWoS foundry prices in 2025.

According to media reports, amid high demand in the AI field, the capacity for advanced processes and packaging is in high demand. $Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$ Starting from January 2025, a further price adjustment will be made for 3nm, 5nm, and CoWoS processes. Specifically, the price increase for 3nm and 5nm will be between 5% and 10%, while the most in-demand CoWoS will see increases of 15% to 20%. However, Taiwan Semiconductor will also offer discounts in the mature process area, providing foundry price discounts of around 5% to clients who reach a certain scale of wafer volume.

• Intel leads the wave of layoffs in technology, contrary to industry trends.

$Intel (INTC.US)$ This year, approximately 0.015 million people were laid off, making it the leader in layoffs in the Technology industry, however, the total number of tech employees laid off decreased by 43% year-on-year. $Cisco (CSCO.US)$ It is the second largest tech company for layoffs in 2024, with the company laying off 5% of its global workforce in February, followed by announcing a restructuring in August, laying off about 5,500 people. Inflation, high interest rates, and concerns about an economic recession also led to a surge in layoffs in 2023. However, with the overstaffing issue being corrected, broader economic indicators showing stable signs, and the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates, layoffs are expected to slow down in the second half of 2024.

Global macro

• In 2025, three hawkish members and one dovish member will join the Federal Reserve's voting committee, which may lead to changes in policy direction.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets interest rates, will rotate four new voting members next year, three of whom are considered hawkish. The new voting members in 2025 will include Boston Fed President Susan Collins, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem, and Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid. According to a report by InTouch Capital Markets, Goolsbee is the only dove among the four. The company lists Collins and Musalem as mildly hawkish, while Schmid is considered moderately hawkish.

• Bank of America warns of "danger signals" for the US stock market: the momentum is too strong, valuations are too high, and a collapse is difficult to avoid!

Bank of America believes that the "right tail risk" faced by the US stock market may be larger than many expect. Bank of America considers that 2024 will be a bumper year for the US stock market, and prosperity will continue into next year. However, given the current combination of Trump's 2.0 policies and the AI revolution, risks are accumulating, the expected PE of the S&P 500 Index exceeding 25 indicates overvaluation, and the VIX Index volatility shows market fragility, a bubble in 2025 may be hard to avoid.

• Institutions: The US credit card default rate has reached the highest level since the financial crisis.

According to foreign media, the US credit card default rate has reached its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. According to industry tracking agency BankRegData, in the first nine months of 2024, credit card lenders wrote off $46 billion in bad debts, a 50% increase from the same period last year, marking the highest level in 14 years. The write-off of debts usually occurs when lending institutions determine that borrowers cannot repay their debts, which is also an important indicator of severe loan distress. Reports indicate that the sharp rise in the default rate reflects the impact of years of high inflation and the tightening of personal finances for American consumers after the Federal Reserve maintained high borrowing costs.

• Goldman Sachs predicts that the market size of the humanoid robot industry will reach $38 billion by 2035.

Goldman Sachs pointed out in a research report that by 2035, the market size of the humanoid robot industry will reach $38 billion (previous forecasts were $6 billion). The bank stated that the acceleration of AI evolution, technological breakthroughs, and increased capital expenditure investment are the core driving factors for the revised forecast. Currently, significant progress has been made in end-to-end AI, allowing models to self-train without the need for human engineers to manually write all the code, which will accelerate the development of robots. Humanoid robots are expected to be first used in factories between 2024 and 2027, while their entry into the consumer market is anticipated between 2028 and 2031.

Bilibili rose more than 3% pre-market trading and was upgraded to "buy" by UBS, which raised its EPS estimate per share.

Reminder of Macroeconomic Events in the USA

(All in Peking Time)

22:45 USA December Chicago PMI

23:00 USA November Existing Home Sales Index

23:30 USA December Dallas Fed Business Activity Index

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