Breakfast | Nasdaq, Google, Amazon hit record highs together, southbound funds have been buying Hong Kong stocks for 9 consecutive days

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Overnight Market Update

The U.S. March PPI released on Thursday showed faster growth compared to February, but there are signs that inflation has not accelerated. Among the three major U.S. stock indexes, only the Dow closed lower, while the Nasdaq rose by 1.68%, hitting a new closing high. The S&P rose by 0.74%.

Tesla rose by nearly 1.7%. Alphabet rose by 2%, hitting a new all-time high; Meta rose by 0.6%, marking a two-day increase and approaching a historical high. Apple surged by over 4%, achieving the largest increase in 11 months. Amazon rose by 1.66%, hitting a new all-time high for the first time since 2021. Micron Technology rose by 4%. NVIDIA rose by 4.1% for two consecutive days, Arm rose by nearly 5%, and Broadcom rose by over 4%.

Astera Labs (ALAB) rose by 6%, SoundHound.ai (SOUN) rose by nearly 5.8%.

Morgan Stanley's stock price plummeted by over 5%, marking the largest single-day decline since October last year, as U.S. regulators investigate how the company prevents money laundering by high-net-worth clients, including obtaining information from clients outside the U.S.

AstraZeneca rose by nearly 2%, after the company announced a 7% increase in dividends to $3.10 per share by 2024.

Chinese concept stocks showed mixed performance. Nio fell by nearly 3%, Li Auto dropped by over 2%, XPeng rose by over 1%, Xiaomi fans rose by over 2%, Bilibili rose by nearly 5%, New Oriental rose by nearly 3%, Pinduoduo and JD.com rose by over 1%, Alibaba rose by nearly 0.4%, and NetEase fell by over 2%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

Spot gold hit a new record high at $2377 per ounce, setting a new all-time high. Niki Sheers, metal strategist at MKS PAMP SA, stated that any dovish remarks in the future will accelerate the established bull market trend for gold.

Norway's pension fund KLP: Investors may demand that Tesla address labor negotiation-related issues at the annual shareholders' meeting.

Micron Technology: Full-scale DRAM production has not yet resumed, but factory operations are gradually recovering.

Amazon CEO: Expected to launch the first production satellite in 2024.

Merck and Corning announced positive preliminary results from a Phase 2 study of their jointly developed TROP2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) ladiratuzumab vedotin for the treatment of advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX.N) will acquire biotechnology company Alpine Immune (ALPN.N) for approximately $4.9 billion in cash to gain access to the latter's drugs for treating kidney autoimmune diseases.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

Media: Apple plans to fully update its Mac product line, with the first batch of Macs equipped with the M4 chip featuring enhanced AI capabilities set to be launched by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Apple's stock price saw its largest single-day increase in 11 months.

Google announced that it will provide several AI-driven photo editing tools for free to all users of Google Photos.

Microsoft will unveil new AI tools and AI PC products at the Build 2024 conference in May

Cryptocurrency

Coinbase: Derivatives have launched Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin futures contracts.

According to CNBC: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited the US Congress. He stated that the US needs to formulate artificial intelligence policies.

According to Punchbowl: US House Financial Services Committee Chairman McHenry and US Senate Majority Leader Schumer discussed stablecoin reform.

The founder of the cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX has appealed his 25-year prison sentence, with the case he carries being seen as one of the largest financial fraud cases in US history.

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Fed's Williams: Inflation path is expected to show further volatility, no need to cut interest rates in the very short term, but will eventually need to cut rates.

Fed's Barkin: Inflation has not reached the level the Fed hopes to see, timing of rate cuts will depend on upcoming data.

Fed's Collins: May take longer to start cutting rates, number of rate cuts this year may be reduced.

According to CME "FedWatch": Probability of Fed keeping rates unchanged in May is 94.5%, probability of cumulative 25 basis points rate cut is 5.5%.

Deutsche Bank significantly reduces expectations for Fed rate cuts, expecting Fed to only ease policy once this year, and not until December. This shift is almost revolutionary: earlier this month, Deutsche Bank still believed that the Fed would cut rates four times this year. "The core personal consumption expenditure price index was high enough in March and April to raise more concerns about inflation, which is unlikely to prove the rationale for a rate cut in July."

Goldman Sachs raises China's first quarter and full-year GDP growth forecasts for this year. Goldman Sachs raised its first quarter GDP year-on-year growth forecast from the previous 4.5% to 5.0%; raised its 2024 GDP growth forecast from the previous 4.8% to 5.0%.

Funds continue to flow into the Hong Kong stock market, with southbound funds net buying for 9 consecutive trading days, with a net purchase amount of approximately 38 billion yuan. In the long term, southbound funds have net bought over 140 billion yuan since the beginning of this year. Some mainland fund advisory products have significantly increased their allocation to Hong Kong stocks, and several public funds are also continuously deploying Hong Kong-related products.

China's National Development and Reform Commission: The document on trading in old for new consumer goods led by the Ministry of Commerce has been printed and may be officially released in the next few days.

Italian Deputy Prime Minister: Welcomes Chinese companies in new energy fields such as electric vehicles to invest in Italy.

China's Ministry of Commerce responds to the US including six Chinese companies on the entity list for export control: The US should immediately correct its wrong practices and stop its unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's largest cobalt producer, is seeking advice from international industry organizations to consider restricting cobalt exports to boost prices, including through potential export quotas. The country supplies 75% of the world's cobalt. Since mid-2022, due to global supply outpacing demand, the price of cobalt has fallen by two-thirds.

Several high-ranking government officials in South Korea, including the Prime Minister, have simultaneously resigned