*The Dow Jones and S&P 500 continue to hit new highs
*NVIDIA's intraday market value exceeded $2 trillion
The US stock market saw mixed gains and losses on Friday, with the S&P 500 and Dow continuing to hit new highs. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 62.42 points, or 0.16%, to 39131.53 points; The S&P 500 index closed at 5088.80 points, slightly up 1.77 points or 0.03%. The stock index had previously reached the 5100 point mark in early trading; The Nasdaq fell 44.80 points, a decrease of 0.28%, to close at 15996.82 points.
In summary, Nvidia's impressive performance has boosted the stock index, with the S&P 500 index up 1.7%, the Nasdaq up 1.4% for the week, and the Dow up 1.3% for the same period. The chip sector generally rose, with Micron Technology accumulating an 8.2% increase this week and Broadcom's weekly increase of 4%; Star technology stocks also recorded impressive weekly performance, with Google and Amazon rising 2.5% and 3.2% respectively.
Divergent outlook for US stocks
Wall Street's assessment of the outlook for the US stock market is divided. Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management, expressed concerns that the market has gone too far and too fast, and it may not be reasonable to continue chasing gains. "Obviously, the market has not shown the same strong momentum as technology stocks, and I believe this does pose a certain risk to the future market, as everything is included in technology stocks in advance."
Greg Marcus, Managing Director of UBS Private Wealth Management, stated that investors should take advantage of market volatility to buy large technology stocks. "There may be a pullback and volatility in the coming months, and we support buying large technology companies on dips." Marcus' logic is that, in addition to benefiting from the theme of artificial intelligence (AI), many large technology companies have strong balance sheets and potential for profit growth, which can withstand higher interest rate environments.
UBS has also raised its year-end target price for the S&P 500 index from 5100 points to 5200 points. The bank believes that healthy economic growth, moderate inflation, a shift in the Federal Reserve, and a surge in AI investment will support an upward trend in the US stock market.
In terms of individual stocks, Nvidia closed 0.4% higher with a closing market value of $1.94 trillion. The stock briefly reached the $800 mark during trading, with a market value exceeding $2 trillion. Recently, the stock surpassed Amazon to become the third largest company in the US stock market, second only to Microsoft and Apple. In May 2023, Nvidia joined the trillion dollar market value club, after 24 years, and the market value from 1 trillion to 2 trillion dollars was less than nine months, thanks to the AI craze. After a 2.4 fold surge in stock price last year, the stock has continued to soar by nearly 60% so far this year.
Federal Reserve officials are releasing hawks intensively
In addition to the topic of AI, the interest rate reduction process has returned to the market view. Several Federal Reserve officials have recently emphasized that interest rate cuts will not come soon, and there are also differences on when easing will begin.
New York Fed Chairman John Williams said on Friday that despite January's inflation and employment data exceeding expectations, his overall view of the US economy has remained largely unchanged. He said there may be some twists and turns on the road to the 2% target for inflation, but the broader economy is moving in the right direction, and it is expected that the Federal Reserve will only cut interest rates later this year. He said that raising interest rates is not the basic scenario he expected.
Policymakers have continuously issued "hawkish" signals, with Federal Reserve Director Christopher Waller stating the previous day that easing policies "does not have much urgency" given the strong economy and employment. He also hinted that the timing of interest rate cuts should be postponed for at least a few months, which may slow down growth and suppress oil demand.
Affected by the above comments, Brent crude oil futures fell $2.05, a decrease of 2.5%, to $81.62 per barrel on Friday; WTI crude oil futures fell $2.12, or 2.7%, to $76.49 per barrel. On a weekly basis, the cumulative decline in crude oil is about 2%, while the decline in US crude oil exceeds 3%.
American version of Tieba plans to go public, with Ultraman as the major shareholder
Reddit, a social media company in the United States, submitted its listing documents to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the 22nd, with plans to land on the New York Stock Exchange in late March. It is worth noting that currently popular tech tycoon and CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, is the company's third largest shareholder, holding 8.7% of the shares. In the previous round of financing in 2021, Reddit was valued at $10 billion, and today its IPO target valuation has halved to $5 billion.
The file shows that Reddit's revenue for the entire year last year was $800 million, a year-on-year increase of 20%, with a net loss slightly lower than $91 million, significantly narrowing the loss from $160 million in 2022. The current daily active users are 73.1 million.