On Wednesday, Wall Street equities kept rising as investors accepted the notion that sharply declining inflation would halt interest rate increases.
With a rise of almost 0.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led advances. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) closed just over the flat line, while the benchmark S&P 500 (GSPC) increased by almost 0.2%. The Dow has increased over the past four days, reaching its highest points since August 14.
Cryptocurrencies continued their current uptrend at the same time. The price of bitcoin (BTC-USD), the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, increased by over 6% to over $37,000 per coin.
The price of oil declined in the commodities market, with Brent Crude (BZ=F) falling to little less than $81 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) reaching $76.51 per barrel.
The unexpected relaxation of US pricing pressures fueled speculation that the Federal Reserve will maintain current rates and may even begin lowering them early in the upcoming year, which in turn drove the spike in equities. This story was supported by data released on Wednesday, which showed that October had the biggest monthly drop in wholesale prices in 2.5 years.
The retail sales report for October, however, showed the first monthly dip in sales since March, despite the 0.1% decline exceeding Wall Street’s projections.
Target’s (TGT) stock shot up more than 16% after the company’s third-quarter earnings completely above forecasts. The big-box store highlighted how US consumers are resilient despite rising borrowing prices.
After a strong surge on Tuesday, which was prompted by lower-than-expected inflation figures, stocks closed higher on Wednesday, giving investors further reason to believe that the Federal Reserve has most likely finished hiking interest rates.
With a rise of almost 0.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led advances. The Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) just closed above the flat line, while the benchmark S&P 500 (GSPC) increased by around 0.2%. The Dow has increased over the past four days, reaching its highest points since August 14.
Interestingly though, that’s not how the market is operating right now. Bond rates and the main averages are higher on Wednesday, one day after a strong rise in stocks caused yields to plummet.
There has been a 9 basis point increase in the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) to 4.53% and a 7 basis point increase in the 30-year Treasury yield (\TYX) to 4.69%.
As for advances, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) is leading with a 0.5% increase. The S&P 500 benchmark, or ^GSPC, is up around 0.2%. With increases of almost 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is holding on.
On Wednesday night, Xi Jinping is having dinner with American CEOs during a period of growing US scepticism over China’s more stringent business regulations and worries about the nation’s faltering economy.
The last time Xi hosted US businessmen on US territory, eight years ago, things were very different.
While downplaying worries about China’s state control over its economy, which was then generating a 7% GDP growth rate, American CEOs went to meet the Chinese president in 2015.
A visit to Microsoft’s (MSFT) campus was part of the trip, and Xi was shown standing next to a number of CEOs who had gathered to meet him, including Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple (AAPL), Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (META), and Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN).
Reports from the trip state that Zuckerberg greeted Xi first and spoke Mandarin, demonstrating his eagerness to lift Facebook’s prohibition in China at the time. “Did you feel the room shake?” Cook’s statement regarding Xi’s arrival was also cited.
But this week, the CEO of Meta is avoiding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Facebook is still prohibited in China and Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly suffering from an ACL rupture. After years of poor ties with China, he is one of few leaders who has decided not to meet with Xi.
Stanford researcher Herbert Lin stated, “At that time, in 2015, we were a lot more optimistic,”
Professor Herbert Lin of Stanford remarked, “We were much more optimistic at that time, in 2015, and there had been hope then that China would eventually be integrated into a larger global economic system.”
According to Lin, businesses in earlier times were fully aware of the hazards, but they just reasoned that they couldn’t pass up the Chinese market.
now, “that belief is now a lot more shaky.”
In the upcoming years, tensions between the US and Chinese governments might only get worse due to ongoing geopolitical difficulties as Xi attempts to retain strict political restrictions while also trying to stop money flight from the nation. According to new figures this month, foreign direct investment in his country has gone negative.
Target (TGT), which had increased by more than 17% after the retailer’s earnings report earlier in the day, was the top trending ticker on Yahoo Finance on Wednesday. Although Wall Street had anticipated around the same level of sales, Target’s earnings and margins exceeded forecasts, which contributed to the stock’s rise.
With the introduction of a new processor from Microsoft (MSFT), semiconductors came into sharper focus, and shares of Intel (INTC) rose more than 3%. The closing of Intel’s stock was expected to be the highest since July 2022.
Chinese e-commerce giants JD.Com (JD) and Alibaba (BABA) both saw increases in value following JD.com’s announcement of revenues that exceeded analysts’ projections. Alibaba’s stock rose 3% in response to the announcement, while JD.com’s shares increased by more than 8%. Before the bell on Thursday, Alibaba is scheduled to reveal its results.
The chip, known as the Maia 100, is the first in the company’s planned Azure Maia AI accelerator family, it said at its Ignite conference on Wednesday. The tech giant also announced its first bespoke Arm-based (ARM) Azure Cobalt central processor unit for general purpose cloud computing, in addition to the Maia 100.
With the two chips, Microsoft has caught up to competitors Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL), who have both created their own unique processors to power their rival cloud services. According to the business, the chip will be utilised for AI model inferencing as well as cloud-based training. The process by which an organisation configures an AI model is called training.
Wednesday afternoon saw all three of the main averages in the green.
With a rise of almost 0.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led advances. Both the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) increased by around 0.3%.
As the second day of the surge in bank stocks continues, Financials (XLF) has gained roughly 0.8%, leading the 11 sectors.
Thanks to YFinteractive, here’s a glimpse at the performance of some of the biggest bank stocks.