Breakfast | The three major U.S. stock indexes hit new highs together, with the SPDR S&P 500 breaking through 5200 points. The U.S. Department of Justice will file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple

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Overnight Morning Market

In the early Asian market, spot gold broke through $2200 per ounce for the first time in history, reaching as high as $2222 per ounce.

The Federal Reserve's dot plot shows that there will still be three interest rate cuts this year. The three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher, with the Dow rising by 1.03%, the S&P 500 rising by 0.89%, breaking through 5200 points for the first time. The Nasdaq rose by 1.25%, setting new closing highs.

Meta rose by 1.9%, Amazon turned up by 1.3%, Apple rose by 1.5%, Tesla rose by 2.5%, Nvidia rose by 1% for the third consecutive day, AMD fell by nearly 1% for the third consecutive day. Oracle hit a historical high for three consecutive days, C3.ai rose by over 1%. AMD has fallen for five consecutive days, SoundHound.ai fell by nearly 5%, BigBear.ai fell by over 2%. "AI unicorn" Astera closed up 73.42% on its first day of listing, with a market value close to tens of billions of dollars.

Chinese concept stocks rose by 1.9%, ending a four-day decline. JD.com rose by about 2%, Baidu fell by 0.3%, Pinduoduo, which opened 16% higher, closed up by 3.5%; Alibaba rose by 1%, Bilibili rose by 3.8%, Nio fell by 1.7%, Li Auto rose by 3.7%, XPeng fell by 3.8%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

Apple's retail store in Shanghai's Jing'an district opened on March 21st, ranking second only to the Fifth Avenue store in New York, making it the second largest Apple retail store in the world and the largest in Asia. This is Apple's 57th retail store in Greater China.

Media reports: The U.S. Department of Justice is expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing Apple of preventing competitors from accessing hardware and software features of its iPhone, in violation of antitrust laws. This is the third time in the past 14 years that the U.S. Department of Justice has sued Apple for violating antitrust laws, but it is the first time it has accused Apple of illegally maintaining its market dominance.

Tesla: The Texas Gigafactory's 4680 battery production can now support the production of 1000 Cybertrucks per week.

Elon Musk's brain-machine interface company Neuralink has provided an update on the first patient with a brain implant, who is able to play chess through thoughts despite being paralyzed.

Lei Jun commented on the rumor of Tesla's price increase: He sincerely admires Tesla, and the standard version of Xiaomi's car SU7 far exceeds that of the Model 3.

Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in the United States said that the costs of weight loss drugs to the U.S. will exceed the estimated surplus. If weight loss drugs are included in health insurance, it will increase the U.S. deficit over the next 10 years. This news has widened the intraday declines of Gilead Sciences and Novo Nordisk's stock prices.

Morgan Stanley: Expects XPeng's stock price to rise in the next 45 days, with a target price of $18

Morgan Stanley stated that recent sell-offs of XPeng have made short-term valuations relatively attractive. The negative factors of weak first-quarter delivery performance have been reflected in recent stock price performance. Anticipation of a rebound in sales volume from the second quarter onwards. The group's cooperation with shareholder Volkswagen may reveal more details, and XPeng may announce the launch cycle of new car models and the progress of more advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) development XPeng Motors terminates agreement with Taobao China, Alibaba executive Hu Xiao resigns from XPeng's board. Alibaba plans to sell 33 million shares of XPeng Motors ADS.

CAAC of China reports progress in the investigation of the "3·21" Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 accident: no faults or abnormalities in the aircraft systems were found before takeoff.

Tencent Holdings' revenue in 2023 reached 609 billion RMB, a 10% year-on-year increase; full-year NON-IFRS net profit was 157.69 billion RMB, a 36% year-on-year increase. The combined monthly active accounts for WeChat and Weixin reached 1.343 billion, a 2% year-on-year increase; QQ's monthly active accounts on mobile terminals were 554 million, a 3% year-on-year decrease. It is recommended to distribute dividends of HKD 3.40 per share, a 42% increase; and plans to at least double the share repurchase scale to over 100 billion HKD by 2024.

Pony Ma: Usage of WeChat Video Accounts Doubled Last Year

The short video content ecosystem has improved, and the WeChat Mini Games platform has achieved over 50% annual growth. Tencent executives stated that the conversion of text to long videos is a key area of future focus, and they will further promote the development of hybrid large models.

Pinduoduo Responds to Questions on Share Repurchase and Dividends

Pinduoduo's CFO Liu Jun stated that this question essentially pertains to the overall capital allocation of the company, which is closely related to the stage of the company's development. Each company is at a different stage of development. For Pinduoduo, we are still in the investment stage, and our current focus remains on investing in long-term value.

EU to Introduce Guidelines to Combat Election Misinformation, Large Social Media Platforms May Face Fines

The European Commission is set to adopt guidelines as early as next week aimed at combating online threats to the fairness of elections (European elections will be held in June). Platforms that fail to adequately address false information or deepfakes could face fines of up to 6% of their global turnover. Platforms covered by these requirements include Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

Sources: OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5 by mid-year.

The US government announces a $19.5 billion subsidy for Intel.

Micron Technology: Continuing to advance projects in Japan, China, and India. Micron Technology rose more than 10% after hours, with its third-quarter adjusted revenue outlook exceeding expectations.

Sources: Amazon is developing a new artificial intelligence tool for online shopping.

Industry organization SEMI: Global 12-inch wafer fab equipment investment is expected to exceed $100 billion by 2025.

Kuaishou CEO Cheng Yixiao: Confident in developing large models in-house to reach the level of GPT-4.0 within six months.

Cryptocurrency

In early Asian trading, Bitcoin broke through the $68,000 mark, rising nearly 5% intraday.

Fed Chair Powell: Stating that the Fed is secretly studying central bank digital currencies is incorrect, as legislative authorization is needed to launch a digital dollar.

IPO Opportunities

The Wall Street Journal: Reddit's IPO priced at $34 per share, at the upper end of the range. Reddit raised $748 million in its IPO

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Key Points of the Federal Reserve FOMC Statement and Powell's Press Conference

FOMC Statement:

1. Overview of the Statement: Unanimously agreed to keep interest rates unchanged, reiterated the need for increased confidence in the decline of inflation, and removed the wording from the January statement regarding "slowing" job growth.

2. Interest Rate Outlook: The dot plot maintains the expectation of three rate cuts this year, but at least 5 officials have reduced the magnitude of rate cuts for this year. 9 Fed officials expect to cut rates 2 times or less by 2024; raised the median expectation for the end of 2025 to 3.9% and the long-term median to 2.6%.

3. Inflation Outlook: The dot plot shows the median expectation for core PCE at the end of 2024 raised to 2.6%; inflation has cooled over the past year but remains at a "high level."

4. Economic Outlook: The dot plot has significantly raised the median GDP expectations for the end of 2024-2026; economic activity has been steadily expanding, but the economic outlook remains uncertain.

Powell's Press Conference:

1. Interest Rate Outlook: Reiterated that the policy rate may have peaked, and if necessary, prepared to keep rates at a higher level for a longer period. A rate cut at some point this year would be appropriate. Significant weakness in the labor market would be a reason to start cutting rates. "Not far from being confident about cutting rates" means we need to confirm that progress in inflation will continue.

2. Inflation Outlook: Raising inflation forecasts does not mean the Fed has increased tolerance for inflation. January CPI and PCE data were quite high, but it may be due to seasonal adjustments. We will not overreact to these two data points or ignore them.

3. Economic Outlook: The economy has made significant progress, with strong consumer demand and supply chain recovery driving GDP growth. The labor market remains relatively tight, nominal wage growth has slowed, and the labor market supply and demand are moving towards a better balance.

4. Balance Sheet Reduction: The meeting discussed the slowdown in balance sheet reduction, and implementing it soon is appropriate. We will closely monitor signs indicating the end of balance sheet reduction, with the long-term goal of the balance sheet mainly consisting of Treasury securities. When RRP falls to 0, the "bloodletting" of reserves through QT is almost 1:1.

5. Market Reaction: The probability of a rate cut in June has increased from 70% to 80%.

Market News: President Biden strengthens automotive emission requirements, which will drive sales of electric vehicles.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority keeps the base rate unchanged at 5.75%.

The first meeting of the China-Europe Financial Working Group was held in Beijing