Breakfast | Alibaba and JD.com shake after earnings and close higher! Tesla and NVIDIA surge, leading the technology stocks
US retail sales and employment remain strong, easing concerns of a recession, leading to the market unwinding significant rate cut bets. JD.com rose over 7% after earnings, closing up over 4%, while Alibaba opened lower by over 2% before turning positive by 3%, ultimately closing roughly flat. Ulta Beauty, which was bought by Berkshire Hathaway and went long, surged over 13% at one point
Good morning! A great day starts with making money.
Overnight Morning Market
The three major U.S. stock indexes all closed higher, with the Dow rising 1.39% to 40,563.06 points, the S&P 500 rising 1.61% to 5,543.22 points, and the Nasdaq rising 2.34% to 17,594.5 points, marking the sixth consecutive day of gains.
The "Tech Seven Sisters" all rose. Tesla led the way with a 6.34% increase, NVIDIA rose by 4.05%, accumulating a 17% increase over four days, Apple rose by 1.35%, Microsoft rose by 1.18%, "Metaverse" Meta rose by 2.01%, Google Class A rose by 0.58%, and Amazon rose by 4.4%.
Most AI concept stocks rose. "AI demon stock" AMD rose by 8.59%, Dell Technologies rose by 7.05%, Oracle rose by 0.98%, CrowdStrike rose by 1.67%, C3.ai rose by 2.19%, Palantir rose by 0.71%, BigBear.ai rose by 6.61%, Serve Robotics, an AI robot delivery company held by NVIDIA, rose by 0.62%, BullFrog AI rose by 11.67%, while Snowflake fell by 0.2% and SoundHound AI, an AI voice company held by NVIDIA, fell by 0.6%.
Chinese concept stocks generally rose, with Pinduoduo rising by 2.18%, NetEase by 2.7%, Baidu by 2.61%, New Oriental by 1.4%, Tencent Holdings ADR by 0.59%, Li Auto by 2.13%, ZEEKR by 3.54%, Bilibili by 2.14%, XPeng by 2.4%, and Nio by 2.96%.
After the earnings report, JD.com rose over 7% and closed up over 4%, while Alibaba opened lower by over 2% but briefly turned up by 3%, ultimately closing roughly flat.
Popular Stocks
Alibaba achieved revenue of 243.236 billion yuan in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, a year-on-year increase of 4%; operating profit was 35.989 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15%; net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders was 24.269 billion yuan; net profit was 24.022 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27%.
JD.com's second-quarter revenue was 291.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.2%; net profit attributable to the company's ordinary shareholders was 12.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 92.1%; R&D expenses increased by 3.6% year-on-year to 4.2 billion yuan; in the second quarter, a total of 137 million Class A ordinary shares were repurchased, totaling $2.1 billion.
Apple will start allowing third parties to use the iPhone's payment chip to process transactions, enabling banks and other service providers to compete with the Apple Pay platform. Apple stated that developers will be able to use this component starting from iOS 18.1, which is the upcoming software update for the iPhone.
According to the 13F filing, Temasek Holdings increased its holdings in 11 large U.S. tech companies by $3.3 billion in the second quarter. Approximately $3.2 billion went into six companies: Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Walmart closed up 6.58%. In the second quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, total revenue was $169.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%; adjusted operating net profit was $7.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%; adjusted earnings per share were $0.67, compared to $0.61 in the same period last year; it is expected that in the third quarter, the net sales will increase by 3.25%-4.25% year-on-year, operating net profit will increase by 3%-4.5% year-on-year, and adjusted earnings per share will be $0.51-0.52.
SoftBank's AI chip cooperation negotiations with Intel ended in failure, and they are currently focusing on negotiations with TSMC.
Other Stocks
Cisco rose by 6.8%, with new fiscal year guidance stronger than expected, and a global workforce reduction of 7%.
Nike rose by 5.07%, with hedge fund giant Ackman taking a position.
Ulta Beauty surged over 13% at one point, ultimately closing up by 11.17%, as Berkshire Hathaway increased its holdings.
Applied Materials fell by 0.56% after the US market closed, then rose by 0.55%. Sales in the third quarter met market expectations, with AI driving the company's performance.
Lenovo Group ADR rose by 1.11%, with non-PC business accounting for nearly 47%, reaching a historical high. According to Canalys' latest statistics, Lenovo's AI PC shipments increased by as much as 228% month-on-month.
Macro: Taking You Around the World
US retail sales rose by 1.0% month-on-month in July, exceeding expectations of 0.3%, with the previous value revised from flat to a decrease of 0.2%. Core retail sales rose by 0.4% month-on-month, exceeding expectations of 0.1%, with the previous value revised from a 0.4% increase to a 0.5% increase.
Initial jobless claims in the US last week were 227,000, lower than the expected 235,000, with the previous value revised from 233,000 to 234,000; the four-week average was 236,500, revised from 240,750 to 241,000; continuing jobless claims as of August 3 were 1.864 million, lower than the expected 1.875 million, with the previous value revised from 1.875 million to 1.871 million.
China released economic data for July yesterday, showing a slight rebound in consumption, while production and investment declined, and the real estate sector continued to adjust. The year-on-year decline in second-hand housing prices in first-tier cities continued to narrow, but the month-on-month decline widened.
Federal Reserve Chairman Powell will deliver a speech on economic outlook at the Jackson Hole Global Central Bank Annual Symposium at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, August 23. This symposium has become a window for the Fed to hint at important milestones in monetary policy. It is worth noting that in recent years, Powell's speeches at the Jackson Hole Symposium have often led to significant market fluctuations in the US stock market