Market

In March, U.S. stocks continued to perform strongly. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to be favored by investors, with large capital inflows, while technology ETFs experienced net outflows. Data show that in March, global investors invested US$126.5 billion in ETF products in the US market. This data is second only to the last two months of 2023 and the third highest monthly inflow since 2021. In this round of buying boom, stock ETFs took over US$96.6 billion, showing that investors still have a relatively positive attitude towards US stocks. In terms of themes, industrial stock ETFs are the most popular, with net inflows of US$1.4 billion. This is the strongest performance of industrial themed stock ETFs since July 2023; raw materials and energy industry ETFs have a net inflow of US$1.3 billion and US$600 million respectively. Net inflows followed closely, and these are industries that are highly cyclical and highly dependent on economic performance. The capital movement in March sent an important signal. Technology ETFs experienced a net outflow of US$600 million, which was the first net outflow since June last…

Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend represents the possibility of a wider conflict in the Middle East and has made global markets more worried about uncontrollable risks. Capital Economics said that heightened tensions in the Middle East after Iran attacked Israel may give the Federal Reserve more reason to slow down the pace of raising interest rates, as soaring oil prices will disrupt the Fed’s battle with central banks. Neil Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics, said in a report on Sunday that the main risk facing the world is whether Iran and Israel will escalate their conflict into a broader regional conflict, and how the energy market will react. He said that rising oil prices will make inflation targets in advanced economies more complex, but only when energy prices become a key driver of core inflation rates will they likely have a substantial impact on central bank decision-making. According to the White House, it is working hard to prevent the situation from expanding further. Biden is said to have communicated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the…

Recently, the sharp rise in international gold prices has attracted the attention of investors from almost all over the world. Behind the frenzied buying in the gold market, another safe-haven asset, U.S. Treasury bonds, presents a completely different scene of depression. A series of weak performance at U.S. Treasury auctions has stoked investor concerns that the market will struggle to absorb the massive issuance of Treasury debt. In the past week, after weak demand for the US$39 billion 10-year Treasury bond auction, the bond market sell-off triggered by higher-than-expected U.S. CPI in March intensified. Investors also showed little interest in the three-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury auctions. Behind the growing caution among bond market investors is the growing belief that U.S. inflation is not yet fully under control and that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates at multi-decade highs in the coming months or even years. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, known as the “anchor of global asset pricing” and the benchmark for pricing borrowing rates from mortgages to corporate loans, closed at around 4.5% last…

U.S. stock market: The three major U.S. stock indexes collectively fell. The Dow fell more than 1%, and the Nasdaq and S&P fell nearly 1%. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 422.16 points from the previous trading day, closing at 38461.51 points, a decrease of 1.09 %; the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 136.28 points to close at 16170.36 points, a decrease of 0.84%. ; The S&P 500 stock index fell 49.27 points to close at 5160.64 points, a decrease of 0.95%. In terms of data, the U.S. announced before the market opened that the CPI in March increased by 3.5% year-on-year, which was higher than market expectations of 3.4% and the highest level since September 2023. Most large technology stocks fell, with Tesla falling more than 2%, Apple falling more than 1%, and Google and Microsoft following suit; Meta, Amazon, and Netflix rose slightly. The chip and semiconductor sectors were among the top decliners, with GF and NXP Semiconductors falling by more than 4%, Intel, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and AMD falling by more than 2%; NVIDIA…

Driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) craze, technology stocks seem to have attracted all the attention of U.S. stock investors, but some analysts believe that investors should focus on a less dazzling industry. Driven by various bullish factors, The industry is ripe for strong gains. Energy stocks deserve more attention as the sector starts the year off with an impressive performance, according to top U.S. economist David Rosenberg, president of Rosenberg Research profound. The S&P 500 Energy index has returned 16.3% so far this year, and investors haven’t noticed yet. “This is an overlooked segment of the market because investors have very negative positions (in the sector) (SPDR Energy ETF outflows of $2.7 billion over the past year),” he said. Overall, there are three main reasons why energy stocks are expected to rise further this year, with some analysts predicting the sector will rise as much as 20% from current levels. Strong fundamentals Even as technology stocks move higher on strong earnings, LPL Financial noted in a report that the energy sector posted more March earnings revisions than all S&P…

“The U.S. dollar is our currency, but it’s your trouble” – As the U.S. dollar has been rising against the backdrop of recent declines in expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut, this famous quote from former U.S. Treasury Secretary Connally more than half a century ago seems to be coming back again. It has become a major problem for many policymakers in emerging markets… Many investors in the foreign exchange market have recently been paying attention to whether the Japanese government will intervene to prevent the yen, which has already fallen below the 153 mark, from weakening further. But in fact, in emerging markets, many economies face exchange rate pressures no less than Japan. Some locals said the foreign exchange market has become a key battleground, as the dollar’s recent surge has put tremendous pressure on an increasing number of emerging economies to intervene. Market data shows that as investors continue to buy gold and the US dollar, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index weakened for the third consecutive day on Friday, approaching the low of the year. Almost…

Musk sent an all-staff email this afternoon, saying Tesla will lay off 10% of its employees worldwide. Earlier, foreign media reported that some employees said the layoff rate may be as high as 20%. However, according to verification, Tesla’s official all-employee letter was released at around 3:00 pm on April 15th, Beijing time, confirming that the layoff ratio would be 10%. Some media asked Tesla store employees in China to confirm the news. The other party said that they had not received the notification yet, but it would not have an impact on the business. Tesla has more than 140,000 employees worldwide, according to a December filing with regulators. Entering April this year, a new round of “price war” among car companies has begun. According to incomplete statistics, more than 10 brands have successively launched preferential activities since April. In addition to price reductions, consumers are attracted through various methods such as price reductions for additional equipment, separation of vehicles and electricity, and replacement subsidies. With Xiaomi Motors’ first car officially launched, priced starting at 215,900 yuan, new entrants have…

BofA Securities last week lowered its price target on Intel stock to $44 per share from the previous price of $50 per share, while maintaining a neutral rating on the stock. Prior to this target price adjustment, Intel conducted a re-segmentation of its business, which resulted in a change in the valuation method of the company’s IDM (vertical integration from chip design to production) business, including products and foundry services. . A report from Bank of America Securities pointed out that Intel’s future depends largely on CEO Pat Gelsinger’s vision to transform the chip company into a semiconductor foundry and compete with other companies in the industry. However, Bank of America analysts commented on Intel’s current situation that although Intel’s foundry business has made some achievements in external design, it still relies heavily on the company’s internal design team. This dependence has prompted the valuation of the IDM business to shift to a comprehensive assessment. approach rather than evaluating each part individually. Therefore, the new price target set by Bank of America this time is 23 times the expected price-to-earnings…

As the first-quarter earnings season of the U.S. stock market slowly opened last week, JPMorgan Chase , which has always been bearish on the prospects of U.S. stocksAnother pessimistic warning. JP Morgan strategists are not optimistic about the outlook for corporate earnings this earnings season, believing that except for a few technology giants, most U.S. stock companies will see an overall decline in earnings. They also believe that even if U.S. stock companies perform well in earnings, it will be difficult to push U.S. stocks higher because most of the optimism has been digested in advance. Xiaomo Mo’s pessimistic outlook on Q1 earnings season The team of Mislav Matejka, head of global equity strategists at JPMorgan Chase, wrote in a report that they have lowered their profit expectations for the first quarter of U.S. stock companies. Strategists said first-quarter earnings for most companies in the S&P 500 are expected to decline across the board after excluding several technology giants. Matejka also noted that investor positioning looks “very tight” as the S&P 500 index has risen to a record high. He…