Breakfast | "Smart Money" continues to short US stocks, Intel launches chip with performance exceeding H100

Good morning! A great day starts with making money.

Due to Hari Raya, the Singapore Stock Exchange is closed today.

Overnight and This Morning Market Update

Ahead of the release of key US CPI inflation data on Wednesday, short sellers cautiously closed their positions, leading to a second consecutive decline in the Dow, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq barely closed higher. Financial stocks became the biggest drag on the market.

Most tech giants closed higher, with Tesla up nearly 2%. Alphabet rose nearly 1.3%, marking a three-day consecutive increase and hitting a historical high; Microsoft rose 0.4%, Amazon rose nearly 0.3%. Nvidia fell by about 2%, Intel rose by 0.9%. SoundHound dropped by 3%.

US gold mining stocks collectively strengthened, with Coeur Mining (CDE.N) up 4%, Sibanye Stillwater up over 3%, and New Gold up over 5%.

Popular Chinese concept stocks overall maintained their upward momentum and outperformed the broader market. XPeng rose by 8.6%, Nio rose by nearly 7.8%, Li Auto rose by 1.7%, and Xiaomi fans' shares closed up by 1.2%. Bilibili rose by nearly 8%, NetEase rose by nearly 4%, JD.com and Pinduoduo rose by nearly 3%, and Alibaba rose by nearly 2%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

Several Hong Kong stocks plummeted at the end of Tuesday

China Tianrui Cement plummeted by 99.04% at the end of trading on heavy volume, with only HKD 24.38 million traded throughout the day. Haoxin Financial Technology plummeted by over 90%, with only HKD 0.6733 million traded all day. Ascendas Group plunged 50% at the end of trading.

The parent company Tianrui Group stated: "The reason is unclear, and the company's production and operation are normal." Analysts pointed out that it is suspected to be caused by a small shareholder's forced liquidation. At the same time, the general weak liquidity in the Hong Kong stock market and excessively small trading volume are also among the reasons for the plunge.

Ascendas Group announced that its business operations remain normal, and it is not aware of any reasons for the fluctuations. There have been no significant changes in its business operations and financial condition.

"Insiders" reported safety issues with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, stating that various parts of the 787 fuselage are not correctly secured together, and the aircraft's maintenance and testing are also being done incorrectly. The whistleblower will testify at a Senate hearing on April 17.

Goldman Sachs lowers Tesla's target price for the third time this year

Maintaining a neutral rating on Tesla, and lowering the target stock price from $190 to $175. Car pricing and gross margins remain key factors affecting the stock price. The lasting profitability brought by FSD is still a key question mark, and the delayed launch of the $25,000 model will have a significant negative impact on Tesla.

Media: Apple may not hold a spring special event this year, but instead release new products directly through press releases.

NetEase's Interactive Entertainment Center has established a Blizzard China team, with the two sides having been in contact multiple times since the end of last year. The overall head is Zhang Fengyi, Vice President of NetEase Games, who was previously in charge of the "World of Warcraft" project.

Xiaomi Auto: The non-Founder's Edition Xiaomi SU7 is expected to start delivery gradually in late April, while the SU7 Pro is expected to start delivery gradually in late May.

Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the China Passenger Car Association: Xiaomi Auto's product concept and marketing promotion are worth learning for automotive professionals Frequent price reductions have had a significant impact on the profitability of car companies, already hurting the industry. In January and February, the profit of the automotive industry has dropped to 4.3%, reaching a historical low, nearly halving from the previous 8% profit level. This price war has also put significant pressure on the supply chain.

Blackstone Group is close to finalizing a deal to privatize L'Occitane, potentially ending the global cosmetics company's 14-year listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Eli Lilly (LLY.N) is investing $2.5 billion to build a new factory in Germany to boost the production of its weight loss drugs.

BlackBerry (BB.N) announced a partnership with AMD to advance the precision and control of the robotics industry.

Berkshire Hathaway has officially applied to issue yen-denominated senior notes.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI: The API now offers a significantly improved GPT-4 Turbo model and is gradually rolling it out in ChatGPT.

Intel has released the Gaudi 3 chip, which will be widely available in the third quarter, claiming that the performance of the new Gaudi 3 product exceeds that of the Nvidia H100 chip.

Google has released data center processors based on ARM architecture and new artificial intelligence chips.

Microchip Technology has expanded its partnership with TSMC to help build resilience in its supply chain.

Microsoft will invest $2.9 billion in its data centers in Japan.

IPO Opportunities

Southwest Gas (SWX.N) subsidiary Centuri's IPO is priced at $18-21 per share, aiming to raise $242 million.

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Boston Fed: Postponing or advancing interest rate cuts are both possible.

Institutional Analysis: Extreme momentum changes in the US stock market bring about the risk of a pullback, with a trickle potentially turning into a flood

As many top momentum stocks are the largest stocks, such as Nvidia and Meta (driving the current stock price decline), as momentum signals shift, the trickle of outflows may turn into a flood, leading to a market-wide decline.

Expectations of Fed rate cuts have collapsed, "smart money" continues to short the stock market

Goldman Sachs data shows that hedge funds sold global stocks for the second consecutive week last week, driven almost entirely by short selling, marking the largest selling pressure from hedge funds since mid-January. The non-essential consumer goods sector is a hard-hit area. Similar trends are shown in Bank of America's client data, with hedge fund clients selling stocks for the fifth consecutive week last week.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and six other departments: Promoting the deep application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and edge computing in the manufacturing process.

China Association of Automobile Manufacturers: China's new energy vehicle sales in March reached 709,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 29.5%.

Multiple new and expansion projects in China's photovoltaic industry have been terminated, indicating a "ebb" in photovoltaic expansion

Zhang Xiaobin, Secretary-General of the Shandong Solar Industry Association, stated that after the new production capacity is put into operation, the profits of some photovoltaic companies have become very thin, leading to situations where companies may not be able to break even in the short term or achieve profit margins lower than previously estimated.

World Gold Council: Global gold ETF outflows reached $823 million in March, but total assets under management increased by 8%