The three major US stock indexes closed down more than 1%. The Dow hit the biggest weekly decline since the Bank of Silicon Valley went out of business, and the biggest weekly decline for S&P in five months. Only Apple, the “Seven Sisters” of technology, closed up more than 4% in a week, the chip stock index fell more than 3%, Intel closed down more than 5%, and AMD fell more than 4%; J.P. Morgan Chase recorded the biggest decline in nearly four years. The China Securities Index closed down 4.6%, Xiaopeng Motors fell nearly 10%, and NIO fell nearly 8%. The pan-European stock index rebounded and fell for two weeks, and the oil and gas sector rose 2.5% to a new high since 2008. The 10-year US Treasury yield fell 10 basis points from Thursday's nearly five-month high. The US dollar index hit a five-month high; the yen hit a new low since 1990 for three days; the offshore renminbi fell more than 100 points intraday to 7.27. Bitcoin once fell more than $6,000 and fell below $66,000. Crude oil rebounded but fell throughout the week. US oil rose more than 3% to hit a record high in nearly half a year, then returned more than half of the increase. Gold turned down after hitting a record high in the intraday period. At one point, it fell 4% from its high level. Luntong rebounded to a two-year high, while Lunxi rose 12% in a week.
The earnings report of major Wall Street banks, which kicked off the earnings season, raised investors' concerns about high interest rates impacting banks. The escalation of geopolitical tension in the Middle East has fueled the rise in commodities such as crude oil, further exacerbating concerns about prolonged high inflation. The US stock market just rebounded and turned downward on Thursday. The three major stock indexes fell more than 1%. As a result of the fall on Friday, the NASDAQ leveled off this week's cumulative gains, and both fell for two consecutive weeks with the S&P and Dow. Following last week, the Dow experienced the worst weekly decline since the Bank of Silicon Valley went out of business.
Earnings reports released on Friday showed that even the biggest banks are facing higher interest rate challenges. Net interest income (NII), the key indicator for J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank declined by 4%, 4%, and 2%, respectively, in the first quarter. J.P. Morgan Chase's NII fell slightly short of expectations, ending a seven-quarter record trend. Excluding market business, the NII guidelines remained below expectations after an increase of 1 billion US dollars. CEO Dimon warned that prolonged inflationary pressure would affect the economy, saying he was wary of “various major uncertainties.” J.P. Morgan's stock price fell sharply, making it the worst single-day performance in almost four years.
Most of the tech giants that strongly supported the market declined on Thursday. It was only reported that Apple, which was preparing to use AI to support the M4 chip across the Mac line, maintained its gains in early trading, and turned down in the midday session. According to the media, Chinese telecom operators will implement domestic chip replacement for the core components of the network within three years. Chip stocks took the lead in suppressing the market. AMD and Intel both fell by more than 5%. Nvidia took back most of the gains from Wednesday and Thursday, and almost fell sharply this week.
According to reference sources quoting media reports, US intelligence shows that Iran may launch an attack on Israeli territory within the next 24 to 48 hours. Furthermore, the White House said on Friday that Iran's retaliatory strike against Israel is a “real” and “credible” threat, and the US side is closely watching. According to CCTV reports, Israeli Defense Minister Galant met with visiting US Central Command Commander Kurilla on Friday to discuss dealing with possible attacks by Iran.
Geographic risk stimulated risk aversion in the market, US Treasury bond prices rebounded, and the dollar strengthened. Benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields continued to decline at 4.60%, and interest rate-sensitive two-year US Treasury yields all fell by more than 10 basis points at one point, and collectively climbed more than 10 basis points this week, reflecting a further increase of more than 10 basis points in March, reflecting another increase in CPI exceeding expectations in March, and after Federal Reserve officials repeatedly insinuated that they were not in a hurry to cut interest rates, the market's expectations for interest rate cuts have clearly cooled down.
The US dollar index continued to rise to its high level since November last year. Both the euro and the British pound fell to a five-month low. At a time when the ECB hinted that interest rates would be cut during the year, while the market anticipated that the US Federal Reserve's first interest rate cut was postponed until September, the dollar rebounded strongly this week. On Thursday, Japanese officials once again warned of possible intervention in the foreign exchange market. Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said that no measures are ruled out to deal with excessive exchange rate fluctuations. The yen hit a new low since 1990 for the third day in a row on Friday. Although the daily decline was smoothed out since then, the decline remained unchanged throughout the week. Risky assets have been sold off, and cryptocurrencies have not been spared. Bitcoin dived intraday, once falling below a daily high of more than $6,000, erasing all gains during the week. Despite rushing to the record high set last month on Monday, the week came to an end with a sharp decline.
Among commodities, various industrial metals rose. After China announced that imports of copper ore were strong and imports increased by more than 5% from January to March, Luntong rebounded to a high level in nearly two years, and the cumulative increase increased to more than 10% this year. Investors are betting that the decline in ore supply will be difficult to keep up with growing global demand, the review said. Driven by geographical risk, gold dived after reaching another record intraday high, but US stocks both fell in midday trading, falling 4% from a high level at one point, and remained unchanged throughout the week.
The geographical situation has boosted the risk of supply disruptions. International crude oil rebounded strongly in the intraday period. At one point, US oil rose more than 3% to its highest level in nearly half a year, then returned more than half of its increase. The rebound on Friday failed to reverse the weekly decline in crude oil. The delay in the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut, the International Energy Agency (IEA) lowered its forecast for oil demand growth this year, and US crude oil inventories did not fall but increased last week, all of which are factors suppressing oil prices.
The Dow recorded the biggest weekly decline in more than a year, and only Apple closed, and J.P. Morgan Chase recorded the biggest decline in nearly four years. Small-cap stocks, chip stocks, and Chinese securities outperformed the market
The three major US stock indexes generally opened lower and moved lower. They all fell by more than 1% in midday trading. At the low of the new day, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell more than 1.9%, the S&P 500 index fell nearly 1.8%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 580 points, falling more than 1.5%. Finally, after Wednesday, they collectively closed down on the second day of this week. The Dow fell more than 1% on the second day of this week, falling for five consecutive days.
The Dow closed down 475.84 points, or 1.24%, to 37983.24 points, falling below 38,000 points for the first time since January 24. S&P, which rebounded on Thursday, closed down 1.46%, the biggest drop since Powell's January 31 speech hit expectations of interest rate cuts in March, at 5123.41 points, breaking the closing low since March 15. The NASDAQ index, which rebounded to a record closing level on Thursday, closed down 1.62%, the biggest drop since March 5, at 16175.09 points, breaking the one-week low since April 4.
The small-cap stock index Russell 2000, which is mainly value stocks, closed down 1.93%, outperforming the market and falling back to its low level since February 21. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index closed down 1.66%. After rebounding to a high level since March 22 on Thursday, it fell back to its low since April 4. The Nasdaq Technology Market Capitalization Weighted Index (NDXTMC), which measures the performance of technology components in the Nasdaq 100 Index, closed down 1.84%, falling to the historic closing high created by Thursday's rebound, and has risen 0.01% this week.
Major US stock indexes fell across the board this week. The Dow fell 2.37%, breaking the biggest weekly decline since March 10, 2023, the week when Silicon Valley Bank went out of business last week. S&P fell 1.56%, the biggest weekly decline since the week of October 27, 2023, and Russell 2000, which fell by 2.92%, both fell for two consecutive weeks. The NASDAQ index fell 0.45%, and the NASDAQ 100 fell 0.58%, all falling for three consecutive weeks.
Major sectors of the S&P 500 were completely destroyed. With the exception of utilities, which fell more than 0.7%, and essential consumer goods, which fell 0.9%, other sectors closed down at least 1%, leading the decline in materials. The IT sector, where chip stocks are located, fell nearly 1.9% and closed down more than 1.6% in midday trading. These sectors all fell sharply this week. Apart from IT, which fell by more than 0.2%, communications services, and non-essential consumer goods, which fell nearly 0.7%, other sectors fell by at least 1%, leading the decline in finance by 3.6%. Materials, real estate, and medical care all fell by more than 3%, and industry fell by more than 2%.
Including Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Google's parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook's parent company Meta, and Tesla, the tech giants “Seven Sisters” all experienced intraday declines; only Apple closed higher. Tesla fell more than 2% in midday trading, closing down about 2%, equalizing Thursday's rebound. After announcing last week that delivery volume for the first quarter fell far short of expectations and plummeted by more than 6% that week, it rebounded this week, rising 3.73%.
Among FAANMG's six major technology stocks, Meta closed down nearly 2.2%, and Microsoft closed down 1.4%, all falling back to their closing low since April 4; Amazon, which had a record high of 1.5% on Thursday and rebounded to a record high on Thursday, Alphabet's morning trading set a record high of more than 0.4% during the morning session, reaching a market value of 2 trillion US dollars, then turned down 1%; Netflix closed down nearly 1% after falling in early trading; while Apple's morning market, which had surged more than 4% on Thursday, rose nearly 1.9% and continued to throw back up 1.9%. The increase, which turned down in the short term in midday trading, closed up nearly 0.9%.
These six major tech stocks had mixed ups and downs this week. Apple, which fell alone last week, had the best performance this week. Alphabet rose 3.4%, Amazon rose nearly 0.6%, while Meta fell nearly 3%, Netflix fell more than 2%, and Microsoft fell nearly 0.9%.
Chip stocks generally declined and outperformed the market. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and semiconductor industry ETF SOXX both closed down about 3.3%, falling back to their closing low since March 19, falling nearly 1.6% and 1.6% respectively this week. Among chip stocks, Nvidia closed down nearly 2.7%, and fell 0.2% this week after two consecutive gains and closed at a high level since March 26; after news related to domestic chip replacement in the China Telecom sector, Intel closed down nearly 5.2%, and AMD fell more than 5% at the beginning of the session, closing down 4.2%; at the close, Micron Technology fell nearly 4%, Broadcom fell nearly 3%, and TSMC US stocks fell more than 3%.
AI concept stocks generally declined, and most of them underperformed the market. SoundHound.ai (SOUN) fell more than 8%, C3.ai (AI) fell more than 5%, ultra-microcomputer (SMCI) fell more than 4%, Astera Labs (ALAB), known as “Little Nvidia” and sells data center interconnect chips, fell nearly 4%, Adobe (ADBE) fell more than 2%, Oracle (ORCL) fell nearly 2%, Palantir (PLTR) fell more than 0.7%, and BigBear.ai (BBAI) fell nearly 0.6%.
Bank stock indices have plummeted. The overall banking index KBW Bank Index (BKX) closed down nearly 1.5%, falling for the 3rd straight to March 15, falling nearly 3.8% this week; the regional banking index KBW Nasdaq Regional Banking Index (KRX) closed down nearly 0.8%, and the regional bank stock ETF SPDR S&P Regional Bank ETF (KRE) closed down nearly 0.9%, all falling back to the low level since November 30, 2023, after rebounding on Thursday.
Among the major banks that announced financial reports, J.P. Morgan closed down nearly 6.5%, the biggest decline since June 11, 2020; NII was also lower than expected in the first quarter; management said it was unable to provide an update on when the regulators removed their asset cap. After the exact time ultimately depends on the regulators, Wells Fargo fell more than 2% at the beginning of the session, turned slightly down after a few increases in early trading, and closed down nearly 0.4%; the first quarter revenue fell 2% year on year, and profit fell 27% higher than expected.
Among the other major banks, Goldman Sachs fell 2% and Bank of America fell 1.5%. Morgan Stanley, whose financial management business fell more than 5% after regulatory investigations, closed down nearly 0.8% by the media on Thursday. Furthermore, asset management giant BlackRock closed down nearly 2.9% after announcing a 15% year-on-year increase in asset management to a record level in the first quarter, but the net inflow of capital was almost halved.
Most popular Chinese securities fell and outperformed the general market. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index (HXC) closed down nearly 4.6%, falling 3.22% this week due to Friday's decline. After rebounding last week, it fell for the fourth week in nine weeks since entering the Year of the Dragon. China's ETFs KWEB and CQQQ fell more than 3% and 2%, respectively, in midday trading. Among the new car builders, Xiaopeng Motors closed down nearly 9.8%, NIO Auto closed down 7.9%, Ideal Auto closed down 4.7%, while Xiaomi closed down by nearly 2% in early trading. Among other individual stocks, at the close, Station B fell more than 6%, JD fell nearly 6%, NetEase fell more than 5%, Alibaba, Baidu, and Pinduoduo fell more than 4%, and Tencent fan fell nearly 3%.
Among individual stocks with high volatility, the pet drug company Zoetis (ZTS) fell more than 8% in the intraday market and closed down 7.8% after the media revealed that its arthritic drugs Librela and Solensia might have side effects; the day after Fuzzy Panda Research released a short selling report alleging insurance fraud, life insurance company Globe Life (GL) rose nearly 20.2%, still not erasing the more than 50% decline on Thursday the day the report was released.
In terms of European stocks, energy stocks strongly supported the rebound of the pan-European stock index, which fell back on Thursday. The European Stoxx 600 index has left its closing low since March 18, which was refreshed on Thursday. The major European countries' stock indexes had mixed ups and downs. German stocks and French stocks fell for two and four days, respectively, while British stocks are approaching the all-time high of closing recorded in February last year. Both Italian stocks rebounded after falling back on Thursday, and the Spanish stock index also rebounded after falling for five days.
Among the various sectors, crude oil and gas, which is strong, rose nearly 2.5%, to a new high since 2008. Among the constituent stocks, BP listed in London rose nearly 3.7%, Shell rose 2.8%, and the Parisian Total rose more than 2%, and the stock price reached a record high; thanks to copper prices hitting a new high in nearly two years, the basic resources of mining stocks rose 2.4%, and Glenneng, a component stock listed in London, rose about 5%. Together with oil and gas stocks, the automotive and travel sectors closed down nearly 1.2%.
This week, the Stoxx 600 index fell for two weeks after ten weeks of continuous growth, but the decline was less than 1.2%, the biggest drop since January 19. Most national stock indexes fell for two weeks. British stocks excelled and rebounded after falling back last week. Among the various sectors, basic resources surged by more than 4%, and oil and gas rose by nearly 4%, showing outstanding commodity performance. The travel sector, which was affected by Friday's decline, fell by more than 2%, personal and household goods, where banks and luxury giants are located, fell nearly 2%, and interest-rate-sensitive real estate fell by more than 1%.
Ten-year US Treasury yields fell 10 basis points from Thursday's high and still rose more than 10 basis points this week
The yield on the US 10-year benchmark treasury bond drove 4.59% in early Asian trading, approaching the high level since November 14, 2023, which was refreshed on Thursday. US stocks fell 4.50% before the early market. The lower side of the early trading session hit a new low of 4.48%, falling more than 10 basis points from the daily high. It was about 4.52% at the end of the bond market, falling nearly 6 basis points during the day, and falling after two consecutive days of rise.
The 2-year US Treasury yield, which is more sensitive to interest rate prospects, was above 4.95% in early Asian trading. Before the US stock market, it fell more than 10 basis points from the intraday high. It was also far from the high level since November 14, 2023, which broke through 5.0% on Thursday. It was about 4.90% at the end of the bond market, falling about 6 basis points during the day, falling for 2 consecutive days.
The US dollar index hit a five-month high, and the yen hit a new low for three days since 1990, and Bitcoin once dived more than $6,000
The ICE US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the exchange rate of the US dollar against a basket of six major currencies including the euro, fell to a new daily low of 105.20 when it fell slightly in early Asian trading. The European and American trading sessions continued to rise. In early trading, US stocks rose above 106.00 for the first time since November 10, 2023, and then rose above 106.10, breaking the high level since November 3, 2023, and rising nearly 0.8% during the day.
By the time the US stock market closed on Friday, the US dollar index was slightly above 106.00, rising by more than 1.6% during the week after falling back last week; the Bloomberg US Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the exchange rate of the US dollar against ten other currencies, rose nearly 0.7% during the day, breaking the high of the same period since November 13, 2023 on the 2nd. After two weeks of continuous decline, it had risen more than 1.3% this week, and the US dollar index had both risen for three consecutive days, the biggest weekly gain since September 2022.
Most non-US currencies fell. EUR/USD fell below 1.0630 in early trading, breaking the low since the end of October 2023, falling more than 0.9% during the day and above 1.0640 when US stocks closed; GBP/USD fell below 1.2430 in early trading, breaking the low since November 2023, falling nearly 1% during the day, and hovering around 1.2450 at the close of the day; while the yen hit a new low since 1990, the dollar rose slightly against the European stock market. The US dollar rose slightly against the European stock market for the third day. Less than 0.1% After European stocks fell during the intraday period, US stocks fell below the pre-market low of 152.60, falling more than 0.4% during the day, and falling slightly during the day when US stocks closed.
The offshore renminbi (CNH) reached a new daily high of 7.2531 against the US dollar in early Asian trading. After the Asian market turned down, it maintained a downward trend. European stocks narrowly fell from 7.27 to 7.2690 in the intraday market, breaking the low level since March 25, falling 159 points from the daily high. At 4:59 Beijing time on April 13, the offshore RMB was 7.2673 yuan against the US dollar, down 115 points from the end of Thursday's New York session. After rebounding on Thursday, it fell 195 points this week after rising continuously for two weeks.
Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $71,000 in early Asian trading to a new daily high. European stocks fell below $70,000 at the beginning of the session, falling below $66,000 in midday trading, and some platforms fell below $65,200, down more than $6,000 from the daily high, falling nearly 9%, breaking the low since last Thursday, April 4, far from the intraday high since March 14, which was set by rising above $72,700 on Monday. The decline narrowed later, rising above $67,200. The US stock closed above $67,200, and fell nearly 5% in the last 24 hours. The cumulative decline over the last 7 days was less than 1%.
Crude oil rebounded but fell throughout the week, and after rising more than 3% in the intraday market, it took back more than half of its gains
International crude oil futures, which fell on Thursday, maintained gains throughout Friday. In early trading, US WTI crude oil was close to $87.70, breaking the intraday high level since late October 2023, rising about 3.1% during the day. Brent crude oil was close to $92.20, rising about 2.7% during the day, then gradually regained most of its intraday gains.
In the end, WTI crude oil futures for May closed up $0.64, or more than 0.75%, to $85.66 per barrel, leaving the closing low since closing at $83.71 on April 1, which was refreshed at $85.02 on Thursday; Brent crude oil futures for June closed up $0.71, or 0.79%, to $90.45 per barrel, recovering from the $90 mark that fell on Thursday.
US oil fell nearly 1.44% this week, and oil fell nearly 0.8% this week, all falling back after two weeks of continuous gains. It also fell for the 7th week in the last 13 weeks, and the 15th week within 27 weeks since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After surging more than 10% in the first quarter, it was unable to maintain its gains in the second week of the second quarter.
US gasoline and natural gas futures have rebounded. NYMEX gasoline futures for May, which stopped two consecutive days on Thursday, closed up about 1% to $2.8029 per gallon, rising about 0.5% this week, rising for three consecutive weeks; NYMEX's May natural gas futures closed up 0.34% to $1.770 per million British thermal units, leaving the low level since March 28, which was refreshed on Thursday, falling 0.84% this week.
Luntong rebounded to a high level in the past two years. After rising 12% in a week, gold hit a record high in the intraday period, once fell 4% from a higher level
London basic metals futures mostly rose on Friday. Lunzinc rose more than 2.5%, rising for five consecutive days, hitting a new high since April last year on the 4th. Renxi, which fell back on Thursday, rose more than 2%, and Luntong, which had been falling for two days, both rebounded to high levels since June 2022. After falling two times in a row, Lunlu rebounded to a high level since February last year. Lun lead, which fell back on Thursday, hit a new high since the end of January set on Wednesday. Meanwhile, nickel fell for two days in a row and continued to fall from the four-week high created by the eight-day continuous rise.
Most of these metals continued to rise this week. Lunxi, which led the rise, rose more than 12%, Lunzinc rose more than 7%, and Luntong rose more than 1%, all for two weeks; Lunan aluminum rose nearly 2% for five weeks; Lun lead rose by more than 2% for three weeks; while Lun Ni, which rebounded more than 6% last week, dropped slightly.
In early trading of US stocks on Friday, New York gold futures were close to 2,449 US dollars to 2448.8 US dollars, up about 3.2% during the day. Spot gold rose above 2,431 US dollars and rose nearly 2.5% during the day, all of which hit record highs for the second day in a row, and continued to decline thereafter, and US stocks all turned down in midday trading.
Futures closed before falling. COMEX's June gold futures closed up 0.06% to 2374.1 US dollars/ounce, setting the highest closing record for two consecutive days and the third day of this week. They have been rising 1.23% this week, rising for three consecutive weeks. They have been rising for the 19th week in 27 weeks since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The increase was far less than last week, which rose nearly 4.8% last week. Last week was the biggest weekly increase since the week the conflict between Palestine and Israel escalated in October last year.
When US stocks hit a new low in midday trading after the close, futures fell to $2350.6, falling more than 0.9% during the day. Spot gold fell below $2,334, falling more than 1.6% during the day, all down about 4% from the intraday high. At the close of the US stock market, spot gold was above $2,340. It fell more than 1.2% during the day, and continued to rise for four weeks.
editor/tolk