US stock index futures mostly rise, Chinese concept stocks surge before the market, European stocks rise across the board

On Thursday, January 18th, the market sentiment improved, with most US stock index futures rising and popular Chinese concept stocks surging before the market opened. Large-cap tech stocks also saw a general rise.

During a speech on the economic outlook, Raphael Bostic, the 2024 FOMC voting member and President of the Atlanta Fed, had a "ambiguous attitude." On one hand, he mentioned that US inflation seems to be on track to fall back to 2%, but on the other hand, he pointed out that if the effectiveness of curbing inflation slows down, interest rates may need to be maintained at a higher level for a longer period of time.

Most US stock index futures rise

As of the time of writing, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures, which are mainly composed of blue-chip stocks, fell by 0.15%, S&P 500 index futures rose by 0.46%, and Nasdaq futures, which are mainly composed of tech stocks, rose by 0.92%.

As of the time of writing, most popular Chinese concept stocks listed in the US rose before the market opened. Pinduoduo, BIDU-SW, iQiyi, XPeng, and Li Auto all rose by more than 1%, while Bilibili rose by more than 2% and NIO-SW rose by more than 5%.

Large-cap tech stocks saw a general rise before the market opened, with Apple, Tesla, and Amazon rising by more than 1%, Google rising by 0.82%, Meta rising by 0.79%, Netflix rising by 0.66%, and Microsoft rising by 0.88%.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) saw its pre-market gains expand to 6.2%, as its Q4 net profit and revenue both exceeded expectations. Driven by the significant rise of TSMC, AMD and other chip stocks also rose before the market opened.

Most European stocks rise

As of the time of writing, the German DAX index rose by 0.72%, the UK FTSE 100 index rose by 0.30%, the French CAC40 index rose by 0.99%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 index rose by 0.92%.

Crude oil prices rise and then fall

As of the time of writing, WTI crude oil rose by 0.11% to $72.56 per barrel, while Brent crude oil rose by 0.64% to $78.38 per barrel.

In its first monthly oil market report of the year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that with the increase in production outside of OPEC+, the global oil market may maintain a "fairly sufficient supply" this year, unless there are major disruptions. This is in complete contrast to the supply tightness predicted by OPEC the day before. (Continuously updated....)