On March 22, local time, the three major U.S. stock indexes were mixed, and the Nasdaq continued to hit a record high. At the close, the Dow Jones was at 39,475.90, down 0.77%, the S&P 500 was at 5,234.18, down 0.14%, and the Nasdaq was at 16,428.82, up 0.16%. On a weekly basis, the Dow rose 1.97%, the S&P 500 rose 2.29%, and the Nasdaq rose 2.85%.
In terms of individual stocks, Nvidia rose more than 3%, hitting a new record closing high, up more than 90% during the year, with a total market capitalization of 2.36 trillion US dollars (about 17 trillion yuan).
Apple, on the other hand, rose 0.53% and fell more than 10% for the year, with a total market capitalization of $2.66 trillion. The gap between the total market capitalization of the two giants has narrowed to $300 billion.
According to NBC, the House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion government appropriations bill with a vote of 286 in favor and 134 against to fund about three-quarters of government departments until the end of the fiscal year. It is reported that if the bill is not passed by the Senate, the US government will be forced to fall into a partial "shutdown" on the morning of the 23rd.
The Nasdaq continued to hit new all-time highs
On March 22, local time, the three major U.S. stock indexes were mixed, and the Nasdaq continued to hit a record high. At the close, the Dow Jones was at 39,475.90, down 0.77%, the S&P 500 was at 5,234.18, down 0.14%, and the Nasdaq was at 16,428.82, up 0.16%.
On a weekly basis, this week, the Dow rose 1.97%, the S&P 500 rose 2.29%, and the Nasdaq rose 2.85%.
According to the analysis, the market's optimism stems from the Federal Reserve decision earlier this week, and the dot plot released by the Fed shows that officials still maintain their forecast of three rate cuts this year, which is seen as a "dovish" signal. According to market analysts, "this is enough to keep the market going".
However, Fed's Bostic said that his confidence in meeting the inflation target is less high than in December 2023, that only one rate cut is expected this year, which will begin later this year, that the Fed should quickly start slowing the pace of quantitative tightening (QT), and that the unemployment rate is not expected to rise significantly.
Former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida said on Friday that stubbornly high inflation could prompt the Fed to take a more cautious stance on rate cuts this year. He said his former colleagues need to be wary of the stickiness of inflation, which could hinder plans to ease monetary policy this year.
It is worth mentioning that Bank of America pointed out in a report citing EPFR Global data on Friday that there was a large outflow of funds from U.S. stocks on the eve of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting, but the S&P 500 index hit a record high after the meeting.
U.S. equity funds redeemed about $22 billion in the week to Wednesday, the largest since December 2022, the report said. Among them, U.S. small-cap stocks saw outflows of $5.9 billion, and communications equity funds recorded outflows of $1.7 billion. However, energy equity funds have sprung up, receiving their biggest inflows since October last year, amounting to $500 million. This trend stands in stark contrast to last week, when the U.S. stock market attracted record inflows. The signal is that the Fed will cut interest rates three times this year, and the market is gaining momentum. So far this year, the S&P 500 has hit 20 all-time highs.
The report also showed that the IMF experienced its largest outflow since October last year, with $61 billion flowing out of the asset class in the week ending Wednesday. In contrast, gold funds attracted the largest weekly inflow since May 2023, reaching US$1.1 billion.
Nvidia's total market capitalization is approaching Apple's
In terms of sectors, the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 index fell eight times and rose three times. The real estate and financials sectors led the declines with declines of 1.24% and 1.21%, respectively, while the communication services and technology sectors led the gains with gains of 0.85% and 0.45%, respectively.
Most of the large technology stocks rose, Nvidia rose more than 3%, hitting a new all-time closing high, Google A rose more than 2%, Apple, Amazon, Facebook's parent company Meta, Netflix, and Intel rose slightly, Tesla fell more than 1%, and Microsoft fell slightly.
Nvidia rose 3.12%, up more than 90% for the year, with a total market capitalization of $2.36 trillion. Apple rose 0.53%, down more than 10% for the year, with a total market capitalization of $2.66 trillion.
Since the beginning of this year, the very different performance of Nvidia and Apple's stock prices has also narrowed the gap between the market capitalization of the two companies, and at present, the market value gap between Nvidia and Apple has narrowed to about $300 billion. And when Apple's market value exceeded $3 trillion in July last year, Nvidia's market value was less than $1.2 trillion, less than half Apple's.
This week, NVIDIA's annual AI conference, GTC, was held. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced at GTC on Monday the launch of a new generation of AI chip architecture Blackwell GPUs, the first Blackwell chip called GB200, which will be available later this year. It is reported that Blackwell has 208 billion transistors, which is more than double the 80 billion transistors of the previous generation chip "Hopper". He said many organizations are expected to adopt Blackwell, such as Amazon Web Services, Dell, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla, and XAI. Blackwell enables the construction of real-time generative AI.
Goldman Sachs released the latest research report saying that it believes that with the accelerated growth of NVIDIA's latest AI computing power Blackwell GPU platform, the company can grasp the long-term development opportunities in the market, and its competitors will face more and more competition in the industry. Goldman Sachs maintains a "buy" rating on Nvidia and remains on the list of convinced buys, with a price target of $1,000, corresponding to about 28 times its non-GAAP earnings per share forecast for fiscal 2026.
Apple has been experiencing negative effects lately. On Thursday, local time, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the U.S. Department of Justice and more than a dozen state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing Apple of using its control over the hardware and software of Apple products to monopolize the mobile phone market, harming the interests of consumers, developers and rival companies. Garland said the Supreme Court defined monopolistic behavior as "the act of controlling prices or excluding competition." Justice Department officials also said they would not rule out the use of the split to resolve the antitrust lawsuit. Apple says that complying with the regulations costs a lot of money, could prevent it from launching new products or services, and could hurt customer demand. In addition, there are reports that the European Union is about to announce the launch of a compliance investigation against Apple and Google under the Digital Markets Act.
Tesla fell 1.15% after cutting EV production at its Chinese factories amid sluggish growth in NEV sales and fierce competition in the auto market, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. automaker instructed employees at its Shanghai plant earlier this month to reduce production of the Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedan, people familiar with the matter said. The company requires employees to work five days a week instead of the usual six and a half days. The line runs two 11.5-hour shifts per day, which remain unchanged. The cuts began earlier this month, and employees have yet to get a clear update on when normal production will resume, the people said.
In addition, FedEx U.S. stocks rose 7.35%, and the company's operating profit in the third fiscal quarter exceeded expectations. FedEx's board of directors also approved a new $5 billion share repurchase program.
Dow component Nike fell 6.9%. Nike expects revenue and profit in fiscal 2025 to be higher than the previous year, but did not disclose how much the increase will be. Analysts had expected revenue guidance to rise 5.6%. The company lowered its revenue guidance for the first half of fiscal 2025 to the low single digits, reflecting a "weaker global macro outlook".
Most of the popular Chinese concept stocks fell, Xiaopeng Motors fell nearly 8%, Vipshop fell 6%, Weibo fell more than 5%, Tencent Music fell nearly 4%, Li Auto fell more than 3%, Bilibili, Alibaba, Weilai, Futu Holdings, JD.com fell more than 2%, NetEase fell more than 1%, iQiyi fell slightly, EHang rose more than 5%, Full Bang rose nearly 3%, Ctrip, Pinduoduo, Baidu rose slightly.
Bilibili fell 2.41% and Alibaba fell 2.31%. On the news side, Alibaba will sell part of its stake in Bilibili (Bilibili) to raise $357.8 million. A relevant person from Ali told the Securities Times: "The sale is mainly based on Alibaba's own capital management objectives and will not affect the business cooperation between the two parties." Alibaba's related businesses will continue to strengthen cooperation with Bilibili in various fields. ”
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill to avoid a partial "shutdown" of the government
CCTV News, on March 22, local time, according to NBC, the House of Representatives of the United States Congress voted 286 in favor and 134 against to pass a government appropriations bill worth $1.2 trillion to fund about three-quarters of government departments until the end of the fiscal year. The bill has now been sent to the Senate.
It is reported that if the bill is not passed by the Senate, the US government will be forced to fall into a partial "shutdown" on the morning of the 23rd. US President Joe Biden called on Congress to quickly pass the bill and said he would sign it into law as soon as possible.
Editor-in-charge: Wan Jianyi
Proofreading: Wang Wei
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