Breakfast | Chip stocks and AI concept stocks are cooling down, Cook says Apple will open up new territory in generative AI this year.

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Overnight Market Update

Dow and Nasdaq hit a new weekly low, chip stocks underperforming the market, AI concept stocks decline, while Bitcoin concept stocks rise against the trend

Before the release of the heavyweight inflation indicator PCE price index for the new year, the U.S. economic data released on Wednesday was mixed: the annualized real GDP for the fourth quarter was slightly revised down to 3.2%, below expectations. The three major stock indexes collectively fell for the second day this week, with the Dow falling for three consecutive days, while the S&P and Nasdaq retreated.

Tesla rose nearly 1.2% for the third consecutive day, Alphabet-C fell by 1.9%, Apple fell by nearly 0.7%, Meta fell by 0.6%, Amazon fell by 0.2%, and Netflix fell by nearly 0.9%. Nvidia fell by 1.3%, Arm fell by nearly 3%. SoundHound.ai fell by 7.6%, BigBear.ai fell by 8.5%, and SMCI fell by over 4%.

C3.ai fell by nearly 1.4%. After announcing better-than-expected revenue growth of 18% in the third quarter, it quickly turned higher in after-hours trading, rising by over 10%. MicroStrategy, the publicly traded company with the most Bitcoin holdings globally, rose by 10.46%, accumulating a 40% increase this week. The net worth of the company's founder and chairman, Michael Saylor, surged by nearly $700 million in three days.

Bitcoin surged to over $64,000, rising by $7,000, amid rapid fluctuations, resulting in over 170,000 liquidations within 24 hours. Coinbase crashed due to congested trading and a surge in traffic.

Popular Chinese concept stocks followed the overall market decline. Baidu fell by about 8%, XPeng fell by nearly 7%, Bilibili fell by over 6%, Nio, JD.com fell by over 5%, Alibaba, Tencent fell by nearly 4%, Pinduoduo fell by over 2%, Xpeng fell by about 2%, and NetEase fell by nearly 0.8%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

Short-selling institution Citron Research: Bullish on Bitcoin, bearish on Coinbase's trading is attractive.

Coinbase CEO: Issues appearing in various apps are being resolved: platform traffic exceeded the model by ten times.

Morgan Stanley is conducting due diligence to add spot Bitcoin ETF products to its brokerage platform.

According to the Financial Times: Nigeria detained two Binance executives in its crackdown on cryptocurrency activities.

Apple CEO Cook: Apple will open up new horizons in the field of generative artificial intelligence this year.

Apple shareholders voted against a proposal to release a report on artificial intelligence transparency.

Meta Platforms plans to release LLAMA 3 in July.

Guo Mingchi: Vision Pro demand in the U.S. market has significantly slowed down, with no abnormal return rate

Renowned Apple analyst Guo Mingchi from TF International Securities stated that Vision Pro demand has rapidly declined and has not improved to date. The market generally expects Apple to launch a low-priced version and a spec-upgraded new model. It is currently estimated that a new model with significant changes in Vision Pro specifications may not be mass-produced until 2027.

Insiders revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice is carefully reviewing the "door detachment" incident of a Boeing aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines last month, and Boeing may face criminal prosecution.

• X platform's audiovisual calls are now open to all users.
• 32 European media publishers collectively sue Google.
• Market news: ByteDance is secretly developing multiple AI products including multimodal digital humans.
• Baidu's revenue in 2023 reached 134.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%, benefiting from the high gross profit of its core advertising business, with profit growth far exceeding revenue. The operating profit for the year reached 21.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37%.
• Salesforce's fourth-quarter revenue was $9.29 billion, slightly higher than analysts' expectations of $9.22 billion. The board authorized an additional $10 billion stock buyback. Revenue for the fiscal year 2025 is expected to be between $37.7 billion and $38 billion, with an expected $38.62 billion. First-quarter revenue is expected to be between $9.12 billion and $9.17 billion, with an expected $9.16 billion.
• EA announces a 5% workforce reduction and discontinuation of multiple game developments.
• Following two rounds of layoffs last year, U.S. game publisher Electronic Arts (EA.O) announced plans to lay off approximately 670 employees, discontinue development of unspecified games, and shrink its real estate assets.
• Macro: Taking You Around the World
• Federal Reserve's Williams: It is a reasonable option for officials to discuss three interest rate cuts this year, and the rate cut path does not have to be tied to the dot plot. Consider cutting rates later this year, with inflation expected to reach 2%-2.25% this year.
• Federal Reserve's Collins: It is premature to say whether the Fed may cut rates in May, and it is appropriate to cut rates later this year; Boston reiterated its expectation of the first rate cut this summer.
• U.S. GDP growth for the fourth quarter of last year was revised down from 3.3% to 3.2%.
• U.S. House Speaker Johnson has proposed to the White House to extend the deadline to avoid a government shutdown to March 8 and March 22.
• 82-year-old McConnell will step down as Senate Republican leader after the U.S. election.
• Goldman Sachs: It's difficult to call the current situation the top of the U.S. stock market.
• The "blonde girl" scenario (the economy is neither too cold nor too hot) continues to attract retail investors, prompting many analysts to quickly raise their expectations for the market by the end of 2024. The market in March is "relatively saturated" and the upward trend is "weak," but has not triggered potential selling catalysts.
• Hong Kong's property market enters the era of "zero spicy measures"; Hong Kong's tobacco tax is raised to 70%, with an expected increase of 0.8 Hong Kong dollars per cigarette; the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission is exploring a series of measures to enhance the efficiency and liquidity of the Hong Kong stock market.