With the worsening of the epidemic in China and the accelerated tightening of policies by the Federal Reserve (Fed), which triggered market concerns regarding the slowdown in global economic growth, U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday (25th), the four major indexes fell together, and commodity prices fell.
Before the deadline,Dow Jones Industrial Averagefell more than 200 points or nearly 0.6%,Nasdaq Composite Indexdown 0.44%,S&P 500 Indexdown 0.8%,Philadelphia SemiconductorThe index fell 0.6%.
China reported last week that the cumulative number of confirmed diagnoses had crossed the 200,000 mark, indicating that the clearing has failed and the epidemic has intensified. Investors are worried that the Beijing government will resort to wider blockade measures. On the other hand, the Fed may raise interest rates to curb inflation and further intensify. The market is concerned regarding the risk of a global economic slowdown.
Fund flows to safe havens boost global government bonds, U.S. by press time 10-year Treasury yieldDown to 2.822%, dollar extends gains, by press timeUS dollar indexrose to 101.67.
At present, the market hopes that strong corporate earnings will stop the decline in US stocks.S&P 500 Index173 of the companies will report earnings, including Microsoft (MSFT-US), Amazon (AMZN-US),apple (AAPL-US)、Alphabet(GOOGL-US), Strange Corporation (GE-US), Pepsi (PEP-US), courier company UPS (UPS-US). First-quarter earnings should have a double impact on the market, said Oanda analyst Jeffrey Halley.
In terms of individual stock news, foreign media reported that Twitter’s board of directors has begun working with Tesla (TSLA-US) CEO Elon Musk discusses a potential sale. The two sides reportedly held talks on Sunday and made progress, but the details of the talks remain unclear. If the news is true, it would suggest that Twitter’s board has reversed its stance on trying to block Musk’s takeover through a poison pill.
cryptocurrencyalso affected by panic,bitcoinContinued weakness following falling below $40,000 over the weekend, it traded at $38,845 at press time, down 1.7% in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. Mudrex co-founder and CEO Edul Patel said,bitcoin、etherand mostcryptocurrencyIt fell over the weekend, on the one hand on continued tensions in Ukraine and on the other on Fed comments on inflation and interest rate hikes.
In terms of international oil prices, as the market is worried regarding the spread of the new crown epidemic in China, it will put pressure on global demand. In addition, people familiar with the matter pointed out that China’s demand for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel in April is expected to fall by 20% compared with the same period last year. With the reduction of crude oil consumption by regarding 1.2 million barrels per day, the news affected the price of West Texas crude oil futures once fell below the $100 per barrel mark, and fell 4.45% to $97.52 per barrel before the deadline.Brent CrudeFutures fell 4.44 percent to $101.94 a barrel, down nearly 100 yuan.
Elsewhere in commodities, palm oil futures in Kuala Lumpur rose 7% following Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil exporter, announced a ban on exports of palm oil on Friday to secure domestic supplies.
In international news, the French presidential election was announced. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron easily won the French election with 59% to 41%, defeating far-right candidate Marine Le Pen (Marine Le Pen), becoming the first French president in 20 years to be re-elected.
As of 21:00 on Monday (25th) Taipei time:
Stocks in focus:
Twitter (TWTR-US) rose 3.93% to $50.85 a share in early trade
Twitter is close to accepting a cash offer of $54.20 per share from Musk,media reported, citing people familiar with the matter. That was the price Musk initially offered to the social media company, which he said was the “best and last” price, and rose more than 5 percent before the market opened. Twitter might announce the $43 billion deal at a later date once its board meets to recommend the deal to Twitter shareholders, but the deal might fall apart at the last minute, the sources said.
Coca Cola (KO-US) rose 2.11% to $66.5 a share in early trade
With the recovery of beverage demand and the effectiveness of the price increase strategy, Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola) reported bright financial results in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, with revenue increasing by 16% to $10.5 billion, beating market expectations of $9.83 billion, with earnings per share. Profit was reported at $0.64, which was also better than market expectations of $0.58. In addition, Coca-Cola also said that the suspension of the Russian business only slightly affected the company’s revenue and profit. The full-year outlook remains unchanged at 7% to 8% in revenue growth and 5% to 6% in earnings per share.
Warner Bros. Discovery(WBD-US) fell 0.56% to $20.45 a share in early trade
Warner Bros. Discovery (Warner Bros. Discovery) announced that CNN+, the streaming video and audio service of CNN, which was launched at the end of last month, will end its operation on April 30. The service has only been in operation for regarding a month. Chris Licht, CNN’s global chairman and CEO, said that the end of CNN+’s operations has nothing to do with service quality, but mainly hopes to operate as a simpler streaming video service in the future. Investors continued to digest the news this week.
Today’s key economic data:
- US March Chicago Fed National Activity Index reported 0.44, expected 0.45, the previous value of 0.54
- US April Dallas Fed manufacturing index reported 1.1, expected 4.8, the previous value of 8.7
Wall Street Analysis:
Morgan Stanley analyst Mike Wilson warned:S&P 500 IndexWill fall sharply as investors struggle to find a safe haven amid fears the Fed’s aggressive moves will trigger a recession, noting that the Fed’s quick tightening of monetary policy is facing “the danger of a slowdown,” while the red-hot defensive Stocks will no longer be profitable.
Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research, said that as China’s new crown epidemic heats up once more, investors’ concerns regarding economic growth have led to lower stock and futures prices.
Sebastian Mackay, a multi-asset fund manager at Invesco, said the problem with inflation is that it can be so ingrained that it’s going to get pretty tricky going forward, as the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Chinese blockade continue to impact supply chains.