Big announcement from the Federal Reserve! The latest news on interest rate hikes!
The Federal Reserve released its Beige Book, which lowered expectations for a U.S. interest rate hike in July. On July 15, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed slightly higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.29%, the S&P 500 Index rising 0.38%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rising 0.62%. The "Big Seven" in U.S. technology stocks rose across the board. Apple opened higher and rose 4.01% as of the close. The stock price hit a record high (restoration). Google rose 3.17%, Meta rose 3.07%, Amazon rose 3.02%, Microsoft rose 2.78%, Nvidia rose 0.33%, and Tesla fell 0.43%.
The Federal Reserve released its Beige Book, which lowered expectations for a U.S. interest rate hike in July. On July 15, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed slightly higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.29%, the S&P 500 Index rising 0.38%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rising 0.62%. The "Big Seven" in U.S. technology stocks rose across the board. Apple opened higher and rose 4.01% as of the close. The stock price hit a record high (restoration). Google rose 3.17%, Meta rose 3.07%, Amazon rose 3.02%, Microsoft rose 2.78%, Nvidia rose 0.33%, and Tesla fell 0.43%. In terms of news, on July 15, the Cyberspace Administration of China released registration information for 7 models that provide mobile terminal-side generative artificial intelligence services. Apple smartphone, Huawei Xiaoyi AI large model, OPPO AndesGPT large model, vivo blue heart end-to-side large model, Xiaomi Pascal AI, Samsung Galaxy AI, and Nubia Beanbag mobile phone large model have completed the registration. According to predictions by third-party agency Counterpoint Research, models supporting generative AI will account for 45% of global smartphone shipments in 2026, and are expected to reach 52% in 2027. The size of the device-side AI market is expected to jump from 321.9 billion yuan in 2025 to 1.22 trillion yuan in 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 40%. The memory chip sector suffered a violent sell-off, with SanDisk falling 8.12%, SK Hynix falling 9%, Western Digital falling more than 8.7%, Micron Technology falling 8%, and Seagate Technology falling 5.7%. After the market closed, SanDisk, SK Hynix, Western Digital, Micron Technology, and Seagate Technology weakened further. Chinese concept stocks strengthened across the board. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 2.92%, Alibaba rose 4.8%, Miniso rose 9.45%, Meituan rose 6.2%, Zai Lab rose 5.9%, Tencent rose 5%, and Bilibili rose 4.6%. Alibaba said Qianwen will be integrated into "Apple Smart" as an AI capability to bring intelligent experiences to Chinese users of iOS, iPadOS, macOS and visionOS. Users can directly experience Qianwen’s text and image understanding, content generation and other capabilities on Apple devices without switching between applications. Previously, Alibaba co-founder and chairman Tsai Chongxin publicly confirmed at a forum that Alibaba and Apple are cooperating. He said Apple has been very picky and has talked to multiple companies in China. In the end, Apple chose to do business with Alibaba, and Alibaba felt honored. On the macro front, Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh testified before Congress for the first time since taking office. Warsh declared "zero tolerance" for inflation and firmly committed to restoring price stability. While he stopped short of explicitly tightening monetary policy, Warsh said options to curb inflation include using interest rates. Warsh believes that the price increases brought about by the artificial intelligence construction boom will not necessarily stimulate inflation, and artificial intelligence will increase productivity and wages. According to CME's "Fed Watch": the probability that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged in July is 88.8%, and the probability of raising interest rates by 25 basis points cumulatively is 11.2%. The probability that the Fed will keep interest rates unchanged until September is 51.2%, the probability of a cumulative interest rate hike of 25 basis points is 44%, and the probability of a cumulative 50 basis point interest rate hike is 4.7%. The Federal Reserve's Beige Book showed that between the end of May and June, economic activity grew at a slight to moderate rate in 11 of the Fed's 12 jurisdictions, while another region reported no change in economic activity. Prices generally rose moderately. Among the 12 Federal Reserve districts, 9 reported moderate price increases, 2 had a strong increase, and 1 had a small increase. The overall increase was the same or slower than the previous period. The interviewed companies generally expected that the economy would continue to expand in the next few months. (