U.S. stocks close: S&P 500 regained 5,300 points, and the Nasdaq continued to hit a record high

Finance Associated Press

2024-05-25 05:52Published on the official account of Cailianshe under Shanghai Poster Industry Group

Finance Associated Press, May 24 (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) After a brief decline in the previous trading day, the U.S. stock market "huddled" with high-valuation large technology stocks last night and this morning. The Nasdaq hit another all-time closing high, and the S&P 500 regained the 5,300-point integer mark, while maintaining the weekly "five consecutive positives" by a slight margin.

As of Friday's close, the S&P 500 index rose 0.7% to 5,304.72 points, up 1.41% for the week; The Nasdaq rose 1.1% to 16,920.79 points, up 0.03% for the week; The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.01% to 39,069.59, down 2.33% for the week.

(The S&P 500 ended the week with a narrow gain of 0.03%, source: Trading)

Of course, if there is a reason to stop Friday's rise, the University of Michigan survey released before the market on Friday showed that US consumers expect price increases of 3.3% in the coming year, which is slightly lower than the 3.5% expected at the beginning of this month. At the end of the day, the U.S. stock market is still entangled in the momentum of technology stocks and the occasional "Fed anxiety".

The Fed's favorite PCE inflation gauge will be updated next Friday, and the market is also looking forward to signs of a pullback in April's data, setting the Fed for a "highly anticipated first step" in cutting interest rates in the second half of this year. A team of Goldman Sachs economists on Friday pushed back their forecast for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates for the first time this year from July to September. This is also close to the mainstream expectations of the market.

Of course, for U.S. stock traders, whether it is next week's inflation data or interest rate cuts that will appear in the unknown, they can now put aside for a short time and concentrate on the next three days of the "small long holiday". Next Monday, the U.S. stock market will be closed for Memorial Day. After returning from the holiday, the trading and clearing rules of U.S. stocks will also change from "T+2" to "T+1".

Top stock performance

ON FRIDAY, THE TREND OF U.S. STOCK TECH GIANTS IMPROVED SIGNIFICANTLY, WITH APPLE UP 1.66%, MICROSOFT UP 0.74%, AMAZON DOWN 0.17%, META UP 2.67%, GOOGLE-A UP 0.83%, AND TESLA UP 3.17%.

The decline of Chinese concept stocks also narrowed significantly, with the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index down 0.35%, Alibaba up 0.57%, Baidu down 1.13%, Pinduoduo up 2.56%, JD.com down 2.98%, NetEase down 4.5%, NIO up 0.62%, Li Auto up 3.73%, and Xpeng Motors up 1.23%.

Other news

Google's "AI Overviews" feature, which was highlighted at last week's developer conference, recently went live in the U.S. market. However, due to the fact that this feature frequently provides users with some ridiculous answers, such as "add glue to the pizza" and "eat at least 1 stone a day", it has triggered collective ridicule from American netizens. Google responded that errors often come from "very rare queries" and that improvements will be made based on these "isolated cases".

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced Friday that it will invest an additional $5.3 billion to expand production capacity at its Lebanon regional manufacturing base in Boone County, Indiana, to meet market demand for the weight loss drug Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro, both of which have tirpatide as the active ingredient.

Due to the problems of rockets and spacecraft being detected one after another, the manned test flight launch of the Boeing "Starpassenger Ship" originally scheduled for early May has been postponed. Boeing and NASA confirmed Friday that the latest plan is to ignite at 12:25 ET on June 1, with subsequent launch windows on June 2, June 5 and June 6. At the same time, the previously discovered problem of "small helium leakage" of the spacecraft does not need to be dealt with for the time being, and the spacecraft can operate in the case of "gas leakage".

[Game Station announced the completion of additional issuance, and the stock price soared after hours]

After Friday's trading, the U.S. "retail investors crazy stock speculation" on behalf of the game station announced that the company's new share issuance plan disclosed last week has been completed, with a gross income of nearly $933.4 million before deducting commissions and issuance expenses. Previously, due to the speculation caused by the revival of the "Roaring Kitten" account, the stock price of GameStation rose from $17 to a maximum of $64 in just two days in mid-May. In the face of stock price changes, the company immediately announced the issuance of up to 45 million additional shares in the form of "market price".

According to the latest announcement, the average selling price of the additional offering of Game Station is $20.7, which is nearly double the average share price of the previous month. As of press time, the game station rose 16.37% after hours.

[FDA Advisory Committee Gives Novo Nordisk Long-Acting Insulin a Negative Evaluation]

On Friday, local time, the FDA's external expert committee voted 7-4 to give a negative evaluation of Novo Nordisk's long-acting insulin icodec (injected subcutaneously once a week), believing that the benefits of the drug are not enough to cover the risks. Some commissioners raised concerns about the risk of hypoglycemia caused by the drug. Earlier this month, rival Eli Lilly also announced results from two positive Phase III trials of long-acting insulin efsitora.

[Goldman Sachs upgraded Pinduoduo to "buy"]

Goldman Sachs analysts Ronald Keung and David Ma noted in a note Friday that they raised their group profit forecast for 2024-2026 by 25-43% due to continued growth in Pinduoduo's advertising revenue and a rapid shift in Temu's business model. At the same time, Goldman Sachs also upgraded Pinduoduo's rating to "buy" from "neutral" and raised its price target to $184 from $145.

Driven by this news, Pinduoduo rose more than 7% after opening on Friday, and finally closed up 2.56%, and the cumulative increase this month has reached 25%.

(Finance Associated Press Shi Zhengcheng)

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