Global News: Expectation of interest rate cut frustrated again. US stocks fell for two consecutive days. Samsung started the first shot of mobile AI this year.
On Wednesday (January 17), Eastern Time, the market’s expectation of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut earlier this year was hit again, and the United States suffered a "double whammy" for the second consecutive day. The three major US stock indexes collectively closed down, and the Dow fell for three consecutive days.
At the close, the Dow fell 94.45 points, or 0.25%, to 37,266.67 points. The Nasdaq fell 88.73 points, or 0.59%, to 14,855.62 points. The S&P 500 fell 26.77 points, or 0.56%, to 4,739.21 points.
Overnight, the United States released the retail sales data known as "terror data". In December, retail sales in the United States rose by 0.6% month-on-month, the largest increase in three months, exceeding expectations, indicating that consumer spending is still strong, which further doubts whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates drastically.
After the data was released, the yield of 10-year US bonds continued to rise, rising by nearly 4 basis points to 4.102%, and finally closed at 4.105%, hitting a one-month high. The yield of two-year US bonds, which is more sensitive to the Fed’s policy interest rate, returned above 4.3% to close at 4.360%. This undoubtedly depressed the market’s risk appetite.
According to the CME Fed observation tool, the current market expects that the possibility of the Fed starting to cut interest rates in March is about 57%, and it was still above 60% the day before.
In terms of important news, Boeing passed the bad news again. On Wednesday, local time, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was stranded in Davos due to a major failure of his Boeing plane and could not fly back to the United States as planned. In the US stock market, Boeing’s share price rose more than 1%, and it has fallen 22% so far this year. Earlier, Wells Fargo had downgraded Boeing’s stock rating to wait and see.
In addition, Buffett has a "big move", this time taking a fancy to the tourism economy. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the remaining 20% equity of Pilot Travel Center, the largest travel service center operator in the United States, from the Haslam family, which has thus become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire. This further expands Berkshire Hathaway’s business map in the field of tourism services.
On the enterprise side, Samsung officially released the Galaxy S24 series, a new generation flagship smartphone, at the Galaxy Unpacked event held in San Jose, California, which started the first shot of mobile artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024.
It is reported that Samsung announced that it will cooperate with Google Cloud to empower Galaxy S24 series mobile phones with generative AI, which will bring the generative AI experience to Samsung’s mobile phone users. Samsung is the first Google Cloud partner to deploy mobile phones through Google Cloud using Gemini Pro and Imagen 2.
Previously, it was reported that Apple is expected to launch a generative AI tool in June this year, and this year may become the year when AI is integrated into mobile phones. However, Apple has recently suffered from headwinds. The antitrust lawsuit was first opened in March, and the court requested to stop selling watches with blood oxygen detection function.
[Hot stocks]
Among the large US technology stocks, Apple fell 0.52%, Amazon fell 0.95%, Google A fell 0.72% and Netflix fell 0.19%.
NASDAQ China Jinlong Index fell 2.59%, and popular Chinese stocks fell collectively. Alibaba fell by 0.78%, Baidu by 2.20%, Netease by 1.32%, Tencent Music by 3.33% and Pinduoduo by 0.71%.
[global index]
In the European stock market, the FTSE 100 index in Britain fell 1.48% to 7446 points. The French CAC40 index fell 1.07% to 7319 points. Germany DAX index fell slightly by 0.84% to 16,432 points.
In Asian stock markets, the Hang Seng Index dropped 3.71% to 15,277 points.
[foreign exchange commodities]
[Highlights]
US retail sales in December increased by 0.6% month-on-month, the largest increase in three months.
Retail sales growth in the United States accelerated again in December, indicating that consumer spending is still resilient and will continue to support the US economy. The swap contract shows that the probability of the Fed’s interest rate cut in March is expected to drop to about 50%.
Federal Reserve’s Beige Book: The economy in most areas has not changed, consumption is strong, and inflation has cooled down.
Since the last Beige Book was published, there has been little or no change in economic activities in most areas. Consumer spending is strong, but the labor market has turned cold. Many companies say that consumers’ price sensitivity is increasing. In most areas, enterprises are increasingly optimistic about the future.
Boeing’s serious failure caused Blinken to be trapped in Davos
On Wednesday, local time, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was stranded in Davos due to a major failure of his Boeing plane and could not fly back to the United States as planned. This is the latest blow to Boeing’s once brilliant and now seriously damaged reputation. However, the Boeing plane that Blinken was scheduled to take was a modified 737 old model for military use, not a 737 MAX 9 with "major problems" recently.
Buffett once again shot big consumption! I took a fancy to the tourism economy this time.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the remaining 20% equity of Pilot Travel Center, the largest travel service center operator in the United States, from the Haslam family, which has thus become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire, further expanding Berkshire Hathaway’s business map in the field of travel services.
Samsung fired the first shot of 2024 mobile AI! Google model blessing Galaxy S24
The new generation of flagship machine Galaxy S24 is the first smart phone to configure the large model Gemini Pro and the powerful image technology Imagen 2 on the Google cloud platform Vertex AI. S24 The end-side model Gemini Nano can also be used. S24 has Google’s new search function Circle to Search for Android phones. Users only need to do simple gestures such as drawing circles and lines on pictures or videos to search without switching App;. Multiple searches of text and pictures can be conducted to answer a question circled with pictures.
Apple’s antitrust lawsuit was first opened in March, and the court asked to stop selling watches with blood oxygen detection function.
The US Department of Justice first filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in March, accusing it of setting software and hardware restrictions on the iPhone and iPad to hinder the effective competition of competitors. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit refused to grant Apple a longer suspension of the import ban imposed by the US International Trade Commission (ITC), saying that Apple must stop selling smart watches with blood oxygen detection function.
Vision Pro will be launched soon, and the media will experience it in advance, but it can’t be worn for half an hour.
According to the evaluation of technology bloggers, Vision Pro is "the best of all similar devices tried in his career", but "it took half an hour to feel dizzy and sweaty" and "it took a long time to assemble".
BP plans to set up a technology center in India.
On January 17th, bp announced that it plans to establish a BP India Technology Solution Center in Pune, a city in western India. The center is expected to be put into use in the second quarter of 2024, and the first batch of recruitment positions was announced on December 1st, 2023. After the center is fully operational, it is estimated that more than 400 employees will be employed by the end of 2024 and will continue to grow in the following years.
[financial calendar]