The Federal Reserve (Fed) official’s remarks dispelled investors’ concerns about the central bank’s overly aggressive interest rate hike policy, and the rise in technology stocks boosted risk sentiment. The four major US stock indexes closed in red on Friday (20). Among them, the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Index ended their three-day losing streak, while the Nasdaq Index closed down on the back of strong gains in Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL-US) and streaming leader Netflix (NFLX-US) high.
The four major U.S. stock indexes closed in red on Friday, the Dow Jones index closed up nearly 330 points or 1%, the S&P 500 index closed up more than 70 points or nearly 2%, the first rise in 4 trading days, the Nasdaq index closed up Nearly 300 points or nearly 2.7%, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3%.
Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) permanent voting member, Fed Governor Waller (Christopher Waller) supported continued tightening on Friday, believing that the US economy is still likely to have a soft landing, and monetary policy is very close to a sufficiently restrictive level. The Fed’s top officials raised interest rates by 1 yard (25 basis points) at the meeting.
In addition, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President George (Esther George) also said that the US economy is still likely to have a soft landing. The statements of these officials were interpreted by the outside world as temporarily alleviating the market’s concerns about the Fed’s excessive tightening.
The Nasdaq had a standout week, rising 0.55%, its third straight weekly gain, while the Dow fell 2.7% for the week and the S&P 500 lost 0.66%, both snapping two-week winning streaks, with Friday’s rebound It failed to allow the latter to reverse the accumulated losses in the first few days of this week.
Worries about the impact of Fed tightening on the economy were a major factor behind the decline in US stocks this week. Market analysis pointed out that economic data such as the U.S. producer price index (PPI) and retail sales released this week showed that although inflation has moderated, economic growth has lost momentum. At the same time, the Fed still insisted on continuing to raise interest rates this week. These are all factors that have led to the decline in US stocks this week.
On the other hand, the US stock earnings season, which is now running, continues to attract the attention of the market. According to media statistics, 10% of the companies in the S&P 500 Index have announced their financial reports for the last quarter. Preliminary trends show that corporate profitability has deteriorated rapidly, driving the US stock market to lose about $700 billion in value in just two days this Wednesday and Thursday.
In terms of economic data, according to statistics from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Friday, the total number of existing home sales in the United States fell to 4.02 million in December last year, a record low since 2010, but still higher than market expectations of 3.96 million. , the previous value was 4.08 million households. In addition, in December last year, existing home sales fell by 1.5% in a single month, and the market forecast fell by 3.4%, and the previous value fell by 7.7%; year-on-year, it fell by 34%, setting a record high.
The global new crown pneumonia (COVID-19) epidemic continues to spread. Before the deadline, the Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins University) data pointed out that the number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 668 million, and the number of deaths has exceeded 6.73 million. More than 13.2 billion doses of vaccines have been administered in 184 countries around the world.
The performance of the four major US stock indexes on Friday (20th):
Focus stocks
The five kings of science and technology all went higher. Apple (AAPL-US) rose 1.92%; Alphabet (GOOGL-US) rose 5.34%; Microsoft (MSFT-US) rose 3.57%; Meta (META-US) rose 2.37%; Amazon (AMZN-US) rose 3.81%.
Dow components were mixed. Goldman Sachs (GS-US) fell 2.54%; Johnson & Johnson (JNJ-US) fell 0.47%; Boeing (BA-US) fell 0.16%; JPMorgan Chase (JPM-US) rose 0.24%; Baoqiao (PG-US) rose 0.39%.
Nearly all of Feiban’s constituent stocks rose. NVIDIA (NVDA-US) rose 6.41%; Qualcomm (QCOM-US) rose 4.52%; Micron (MU-US) rose 3.73%; AMD (AMD-US) rose 3.49%; Applied Materials (AMAT-US) rose 3.29% %; Ashmore (ASML-US) rose 2.95%; Intel (INTC-US) rose 2.81%; Texas Instruments (TXN-US) rose 1.21%.
Taiwan stock ADRs all closed in red. TSMC ADR (TSM-US) rose 2.98 percent; ASE ADR (ASX-US) rose 3.28 percent; UMC ADR (UMC-US) rose 3.5 percent; Chunghwa Telecom ADR (CHT-US) rose 0.21 percent.
Corporate News
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced on Friday that it will lay off about 12,000 employees, accounting for 6% of its global workforce, officially joining the ranks of layoffs in Silicon Valley. Alphabet CEO Pichai (Sundar Pichai) said that the wave of layoffs will affect global branches and departments, and this is because of further cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and the use of talents and capital to more important things. .
For the dismissed employees, Pichai said that in the United States, Alphabet will pay the affected employees more than 16 weeks of severance pay and 6 months of medical insurance, and employees in other regions will receive compensation and bonuses in accordance with local laws. will not be affected. Alphabet’s stock price rose 5.34% on Friday to close at $98.02 per share, and rose nearly 0.2% after the session.
Streaming giant Netflix’s latest financial report shows that the number of new subscribers reached 7.66 million in the last quarter, easily surpassing the market expectation of 4.57 million. With the blessing of this bullish news, Netflix’s stock price rose 8.46% to $342.50 per share on Friday, and rose after the market.
According to foreign media MarketWatch, U.S. chip giant Intel (Intel) is cutting hundreds of jobs in Silicon Valley, expanding layoffs that began last year as part of a previously announced cost-cutting drive. Intel said employees are expected to stay if they can find positions within the company, but also said it expects to cut more jobs. Intel (INTC-US) stock price rose 2.81% on Friday to close at $29.22 per share, and fell nearly 0.1% after hours.
The stock price of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN-US) soared 11.61% on Friday to close at $55.16 per share, and its stock price continued to rise by more than 1% after hours. Earlier, JPMorgan Chase reiterated its “Neutral” rating on Coinbase stock, seeing the company as a potential beneficiary following the collapse of FTX and the bankruptcy of other peers.
Economic data The annualized total of existing home sales in the United States in December last year was reported at 4.02 million, expected to be 3.96 million, and the previous value was 4.08 million. – 7.9% Wall Street Analysis
Fiona Cincotta, senior financial markets analyst at City Index, said recession fears appeared to be overwhelming optimism among some companies despite reporting better-than-expected earnings. While investors generally agree that corporate earnings may be weakening, that sentiment has largely been priced in.
Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG, said that it is worth noting that the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield was higher on Friday, but the Nasdaq index still performed well. While this could be bullish in the short term, it makes sense to see the opposite when one turns to the “bad news for economic data is bad news” perspective, where lower interest rates coincide with a lower stock market.
Jeff Kilburg, founder and chief executive of KKM Financial, said that we are looking for a way to continue to move and make higher lows. Higher lows give bulls a bit of confidence, however technicals still support bears and sell the rally.
The numbers are all updated before the deadline, please refer to the actual quotation
