Chip stocks are in the doldrums, San Disk and Micron plummet, technology giants come to the rescue, Apple rises 4%, Google rises more than 3%, Chinese concept stocks shine, Alibaba soars
*The three major stock indexes closed higher, with the Nasdaq rising more than 0.6%; *Medium- and long-term U.S. bond yields fell, with the 2-year U.S. bond reporting 4.13%; *Paypal soared more than 17% as the company received a takeover offer. Boosted by the continued cooling of inflation data and a bright start to the second-quarter earnings season, Wall Street's three major stock indexes closed higher across the board. As of the close, the Dow rose 150.37 points, or 0.29%, to 52,658.64 points, the Nasdaq rose 0.62%, to 26,269.23 points, and the S&P 500 rose 0.38% to 7,572.40 points.
*The three major stock indexes closed higher, with the Nasdaq rising more than 0.6%; * Mid- and long-term U.S. bond yields fell, with the 2-year U.S. bond at 4.13%; *Paypal soared over 17% as the company received an acquisition offer. Boosted by the continued cooling of inflation data and a bright start to the second-quarter earnings season, Wall Street's three major stock indexes closed higher across the board. As of the close, the Dow rose 150.37 points, or 0.29%, to 52,658.64 points, the Nasdaq rose 0.62%, to 26,269.23 points, and the S&P 500 rose 0.38% to 7,572.40 points. There was a clear repositioning of funds on the market: holdings of high-priced semiconductor stocks were reduced and allocations were made to large technology leaders with stable profits. Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet rose more than 3%, and Apple rose 4.01%. The chip sector weakened across the board, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling 2.2%, Intel falling 4.43%, AMD falling 3.46%, and Applied Materials falling 2.73%. The performance of memory chip targets was sluggish, with Micron Technology, SanDisk and Western Digital falling more than 8%. SK Hynix fell 9.00%, failing to extend its strength from the previous trading day. Financial stocks strengthened due to performance boost, with Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase rising more than 1%. PayPal rose 17.20%. Payment giant Stripe and private equity firm Advent International jointly issued an acquisition offer for PayPal at US$60.50 per share, a premium of approximately 28% to the stock's closing price on Tuesday. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 2.92%, and Alibaba rose nearly 5%. According to reports, Alibaba's large model Tongyi Qianwen will be integrated into Apple Intelligence as an AI capability to provide intelligent services to Chinese users. Pinduoduo rose 2.18%, while Baidu, NetEase and JD.com rose more than 1%. On Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released June PPI data, which unexpectedly fell 0.3% month-on-month. The market had expected it to be flat, and the year-on-year growth rate was still as high as 5.5%. Core PPI rose to 4.7% year-on-year, up from 4.6% in May. Melissa Brown, global head of investment decision research at SimCorp, commented: "This data cannot completely rule out the option of raising interest rates. The policy target is 2% inflation. All current price indicators are still significantly higher than the target. Today, the market is prone to excessive unilateral reactions to a single data." This PPI report follows the release of CPI data that weakened more than expected on Tuesday. Two inflation reports boosted market expectations: the Federal Reserve does not need to aggressively raise interest rates this year. According to the CME FedWatch tool, the market has significantly lowered the probability of raising interest rates in July in the past two days, but traders are still pricing in a rate hike within the year; the market expects that at the end of the October interest rate meeting, the probability of a 25 basis point increase in the benchmark interest rate is about 60%. The situation in the Middle East continues to be tense. According to CCTV News, on July 15, local time, the U.S. Central Command announced that at 15:00 Eastern Time, the U.S. military launched the second wave of strikes against Iran that day. The strike targeted Iran's military capabilities used to threaten the free passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Parliament Speaker Qalibaf issued a statement on the war and the latest domestic situation. Qalibaf said that Iran has never welcomed war and will never welcome war, but in order to safeguard national security and interests, it must always be ready for war and must do its best. Qalibaf pointed out that Iran should also use diplomacy and negotiation to achieve and consolidate national interests. The Federal Reserve released its Beige Book of Economic Conditions, stating that the U.S. economy has improved overall, with more jobs but no sharp rise in wages, which will not trigger a spiral of wage inflation. Inflation has cooled slightly, but pressure remains significant, making it difficult to be optimistic. Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh continued to appear in the Senate to attend the hearing on the monetary policy report. Warsh reiterated that the Federal Open Market Committee will be solely responsible for controlling inflation and will take action if necessary to bring inflation back to the 2% target range, but did not release any forward guidance signals on monetary policy.
He believes that the previous round of inflation was caused by past improper monetary policies and will not happen again during his term. He also emphasized that interest rate decisions will be completely independent and will not be interfered by political factors. According to Wash's analysis, artificial intelligence is likely to push up prices in the short term, but with subsequent improvements in production efficiency, it will gradually offset the upward pressure on inflation and ease the pace of price increases. New York Fed President Williams said that the U.S. economic growth is solid and the labor market remains stable, but inflation is still higher than the 2% policy target and must continue to be suppressed. He pointed out that the current tightening of monetary policy is just right to deal with inflation; he predicted that inflation will continue to slow down in the next few quarters. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said the Fed is ready to take tightening action if inflation fails to fall quickly and sustainably. Mid- and long-term U.S. bond yields fell, with the benchmark 10-year U.S. bond falling 4 basis points to 4.55%, and the 2-year U.S. bond, which is closely related to interest rate expectations, falling 6.3 basis points to 4.13%. International oil prices rose. The front-month contract of WTI crude oil rose 0.33% to US$79.60/barrel, and the front-month contract of Brent crude oil rose 0.26% to US$84.95/barrel. The precious metals market was under pressure. COMEX gold futures for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.42% to US$4,044.00 per ounce, and COMEX silver futures fell 2.83% to US$57.11 per barrel. (
He believes that the previous round of inflation was caused by past improper monetary policies and will not happen again during his term. He also emphasized that interest rate decisions will be completely independent and will not be interfered by political factors. According to Wash's analysis, artificial intelligence is likely to push up prices in the short term, but with subsequent improvements in production efficiency, it will gradually offset the upward pressure on inflation and ease the pace of price increases. New York Fed President Williams said that the U.S. economic growth is solid and the labor market remains stable, but inflation is still higher than the 2% policy target and must continue to be suppressed. He pointed out that the current tightening of monetary policy is just right to deal with inflation; he predicted that inflation will continue to slow down in the next few quarters. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said the Fed is ready to take tightening action if inflation fails to fall quickly and sustainably. Mid- and long-term U.S. bond yields fell, with the benchmark 10-year U.S. bond falling 4 basis points to 4.55%, and the 2-year U.S. bond, which is closely related to interest rate expectations, falling 6.3 basis points to 4.13%. International oil prices rose. The front-month contract of WTI crude oil rose 0.33% to US$79.60/barrel, and the front-month contract of Brent crude oil rose 0.26% to US$84.95/barrel. The precious metals market was under pressure. COMEX gold futures for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.42% to US$4,044.00 per ounce, and COMEX silver futures fell 2.83% to US$57.11 per barrel. (