Breakfast | The financial reports of US tech giants are coming, the media reports that Hou Yi and Daniel Zhang are joining forces to buy Hema for $2 billion

Good morning! A wonderful day starts with making money.

Overnight and This Morning Market Update

In the early Asian market today, US stock index futures opened higher, with all three major stock index futures up by about 0.3%. Gold opened lower, now trading at $2382.4 per ounce. COMEX gold futures fell below $2400 per ounce.

This week, important economic data and events are as follows:

Monday: China's one-year and five-year LPR; Zijin Mining and others release earnings.

Tuesday: Ping An of China, China Telecom, Tesla, and others release earnings; The 9th meeting of the 14th NPC Standing Committee is held, with agenda items including the review of the draft Degree Law and Tariff Law; Chabudao lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Wednesday: Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Boeing, Meta, and others release earnings.

Thursday: US Q1 GDP annualized quarterly rate initial value and core PCE price index annualized quarterly rate initial value; Alphabet, Microsoft, Intel, and others release earnings; 2024 Zhongguancun Forum and Beijing Auto Show open.

Friday: Bank of Japan announces interest rate decision and outlook report, US March personal spending monthly rate and PCE price index, US April University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index final value and one-year inflation rate expectation; China Life Insurance, Bank of Communications, GAC Group, Exxon Mobil, and others release earnings.

Last week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both fell for six consecutive days and three consecutive weeks. The Dow rose by 0.01%, the S&P 500 fell by 3.05%, and the Nasdaq fell by 5.52%. The combined market value of the "Magic 7" (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Tesla) evaporated by over $96 billion, marking the worst week in history. The Hang Seng Index fell by 2.98%, and the Hang Seng TECH Index fell by 5.65%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

US House of Representatives passes $95 billion foreign aid and TikTok divestiture bill.

Media: Negotiations for Salesforce's acquisition of data management software provider Informatica have collapsed.

Reports suggest that Box Ma's founder Hou Yi and former Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang are interested in jointly bidding for Box Ma, offering $2 billion. Another media outlet cited insiders saying the news is false and nonsense, there is no such thing. Including the earlier rumors about Box Ma being acquired by COFCO, are also nonsense.

Tesla will release its latest financial report on Tuesday, with analysts expecting a 40% plunge in operating profit and the first revenue decline in four years.

Tesla China has reduced the prices of Model 3/Y/S/X by 14,000 RMB, and the FSD package price in the US market has been reduced to $8,000. Tesla has also lowered prices for some models in Germany, other parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

When will Tesla's FSD be realized in China? Musk replied: it may happen very soon.

Media: Musk advocates prioritizing the development of RoboTaxi, putting pressure on the 2.5 million Model vehicles. Musk's focus on RoboTaxi raises internal concerns at Tesla, with potential layoffs exceeding 20,000 people.

Li Auto announced that the new Li ONE L6 has accumulated over 10,000 orders in 72 hours XPeng Motors will launch a limited-time subsidy of 500 million yuan from the 20th to May 5th, covering four models including G9, G6, P7i, and the 2024 XPeng P5.

Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solution's official website is live, and a new product launch event is scheduled for April 24th.

Leapmotor: 100 C01 vehicles delivered to Didi's premium car service.

Nio showcases the "Leave Car Autonomous Battery Swap" feature, allowing vehicles to autonomously queue for battery swapping.

Singapore's Wilmar: Facilities in Ukraine damaged, event will not have a significant impact on Wilmar Group's performance in the 2024 fiscal year. It will take about 6 months to rebuild the oil tanks in Ukraine.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

Renowned tech journalist Mark Gurman predicts that Apple may skip the M3 version of the Mac mini and instead use a more powerful M4 chip. Rumors suggest that the M4 chip will also come with a faster neural engine for AI tasks.

Intel recently released the HalaPoint large-scale neuromorphic system to support cutting-edge research in the field of brain-like AI. Neuron capacity increased by over 10 times, with performance improved by 12 times. Comprising 1152 Loihi2 processors, it can perform 200 trillion operations per second when running traditional deep neural networks.

Qualcomm and Meta announced a collaboration to optimize the Llama 3 large language models for running on smartphones and other terminals.

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Nomura Securities: Expects a slight acceleration in the US core PCE rate for March.

US growth stocks are currently at a position almost identical to the peak at the end of December 2021 (SPYG chart representing the S&P growth stock ETF). Will there be a "double top"?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a video speech on the eve of Passover, stating that more severe strikes will soon be launched against the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stated that the US turns any conflict into a dangerous chronic disease. The US profits from any conflict, then watches the escalating chaos from the sidelines, waiting for a moment favorable to itself.

CITIC Securities believes that the current "abnormal" collective bull market in commodities is a coincidence of individual narratives. After a phase of revelry, different commodity prices may see differentiation. Gold may still have a relative advantage, with strong gold prices driving up copper prices through the gold-copper ratio. Recent supply disruptions have pushed up price volatility, and from a cyclical perspective, crude oil demand has not yet entered a favorable period.

A spokesperson for the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade made a statement regarding the investigation. The US's initiation of a 301 investigation based on "unreasonable discriminatory practices, policies, and actions" in China's maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding industries is unfounded. There is no causal relationship between the decline of the US shipbuilding industry and China's laws, policies, and practices.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan stated that the China Securities Regulatory Commission will support mainland industry leaders to list in Hong Kong for financing, and will increase communication and coordination with relevant departments for this purpose. This will benefit Hong Kong's new listing market, and more companies with long-term development and return potential listing in Hong Kong will attract more international funds to Hong Kong, enhancing and elevating Hong Kong's status as an international financial center China Association of Automobile Manufacturers Secretary-General Cui Dongshu stated that with policy support, range-extended and plug-in hybrid vehicles continue to strengthen, while pure electric vehicles show a weak trend. It is expected that the growth in battery installation demand for electric vehicles will continue to lag behind the overall vehicle growth.

Indonesia is planning to launch a $1 billion investment plan aimed at leading the regional green energy transformation.

Nissan and Panasonic have jointly launched a new service combining smart connected vehicles with home appliances. Connected home appliances can provide language prompts, such as when family members who are out driving will return home, or when the electric vehicle has finished charging.

Yonhap News Agency: The South Korean government will seek to separately tax dividend income and provide corporate tax deductions as part of incentive measures to increase stock value and enhance shareholder returns. Currently, individuals in South Korea are subject to a maximum tax rate of 45% for total interest and dividend income exceeding 20 million Korean won