U.S. stocks were almost flat, with the S&P rising for three consecutive weeks, the longest winning streak since July | Anue Juheng – U.S. Stock Radar

Investors digested the signs of economic slowdown, major retailers issued excellent financial reports, and the main US stock index closed almost unchanged on Friday (17th).

American apparel brand GAP and American discount retailer Ross Stores led the retail stocks higher as their financial reports exceeded expectations. Energy stocks surged on Friday, recovering from the previous day’s losses but losing ground for a fourth straight week, supported by rising oil prices, as investors worried about signs of increasing energy supplies and deteriorating global demand.

The S&P closed above 4,500 points on Friday, rising for a third consecutive week and its longest winning streak since July. The 2-year Treasury yield rose 5 basis points, after falling 15 basis points on the week to 4.90%.10-year U.S. Treasury yieldIt was unchanged from Thursday, but fell 19 basis points on the week to 4.44%.

Data released this week reflect the risk of a decline in economic growth, with growing hopes that the Federal Reserve interest rate will peak. The number of Americans continuing to claim unemployment benefits increased for eight consecutive weeks last week, while U.S. retail sales fell for the first time in seven months in October. , indicating slowing demand at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

In terms of housing, new housing starts were 1.372 million units in October, slightly higher than expected and higher than last month; the total number of building permits increased to 1.487 million units in October, also higher than expected and a new high since May last year.

On the political and economic front, before the U.S. government shut down on the 18th, U.S. President Biden signed a two-stage appropriation expedited spending bill at the Palace of Honor Museum in San Francisco, allowing federal government agencies to continue operating until January next year.

The market continues to pay attention to the remarks of U.S. Federal Reserve officials. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, who holds voting rights on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year, believes that if house price pressures can be alleviated as expected, inflation will Just go down the path of falling back to the 2% target.

This year, FOMC voting committee member Michael Barr, who is responsible for financial regulatory affairs, issued a dovish signal and reiterated the view that interest rates are close to their peak. However, Boston Fed President Susan Collins maintained her hawkish stance and said the Fed should not rule out the possibility of further interest rate hikes.

Performance of major U.S. stock indexes on Friday (17th):

• US stocksDow Jones IndexIt rose 1.81 points, or 0.01%, to close at 34,947.28 points.
• NasdaqThe index rose 11.81 points, or 0.08%, to close at 14,125.48 points.
• S&P 500 IndexIt rose 5.78 points, or 0.13%, to close at 4,514.02 points.
• Philadelphia SemiconductorThe index rose 24.55 points, or 0.66%, to close at 3,748.65 points.
• The NYSE FANG + index rose 8.57 points, or 0.10%, to close at 8,189.39 points.

Focus stocks

The five tech kings in the NYSE FANG+ index were mixed. Alphabet (GOOGL-US) fell 1.18%; Meta (META-US) rose 0.25%; Apple (AAPL-US) fell 0.01%; Microsoft (MSFT-US) fell 1.68%; Amazon (AMZN-US) rose 1.65%.

Dow JonesConstituent stocks have waxed and waned with each other. Nike (OF THE US) fell 1.53%; Amgen (AMGN-US) fell 1.34%; Johnson & Johnson (JNJ-US) fell 1.15%; Walgreens Alliance Boots (WBA-US) rose 2.27%; American Express (AXP-US) rose 2.21%.

half feeComponent stocks generally closed in the red. Qualcomm (QCOM-US) rose 0.60%; Huida (NVDA-US) fell 0.37%; Micron (MU-US) rose 1.16%; Applied Materials (AMAT-US) fell 4.02%; AMD (AMD-US) rose 0.66%; Deyi (TXN-US) rose 1.80%.

Taiwan stock ADRs all rose. TSMC ADR (TSM-US) rose 1.06%; ASE ADR (ASX-US) rose 0.12%; UMC ADR (UMC-US) rose 3.29%; Chunghwa Telecom ADR (CHT-US) rose 0.05%.

Corporate News

Alibaba (BABA-US) continued to fall 1.91% to $77.60 per share. Alibaba’s market value has fallen to about half that of rival Tencent Holdings. Alibaba announced on Thursday that it would not move forward with the spin-off of its huge cloud business, mainly due to uncertainty caused by U.S. export restrictions on artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Applied Materials (AMAT-US) fell 4.02% to $148.59 per share. Applied Materials is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating export controls with SMIC, China’s largest chip maker. It is reported that Yingcai shipped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of semiconductor equipment to SMIC without obtaining an export license.

Clothing manufacturer Gap(GPS-US) soared 30.58% to $17.85 per share, mainly due to signs that the company’s Old Navy brand is launching fashionable and hot-selling clothing while making progress in controlling inventory.

US discount retailer Ross Stores (ROST-US) jumped 7.22% to $128.82 per share. Ross Stores reported better-than-expected results and raised its forecast as consumers look for bargains to combat high inflation.

ChargePoint (CHPT-US) fell 35.46% to $2.02 per share after the company announced preliminary third-quarter results that showed revenue plummeted to $108 million, far worse than the lower end of expectations of $150 million. Additionally, ChargePoint announced that its CEO and CFO are stepping down.

Wall Street Analysis

Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, said: “Slowing inflation will continue, consumer spending will continue to grow even though excess savings are about to be exhausted, and financial conditions are expected to tighten sharply as the Fed remains higher for a long time. Interest rate action is expected to slow business activity. Such a downturn could lead to a snowballing of layoffs, ultimately creating a vicious cycle that could lead to a recession.”

Dan Ives, a well-known analyst at Wedbush, believes: “As the wave of artificial intelligence spending sweeps across the broader technology industry, the new technology bull market has now begun, and technology stocks will be primed for strong performance in 2024.”

Sonal Desai, chief investment officer of Franklin Templeton’s fixed income team, warned: “The bond market has risen too high and too fast this week. The market is priced beyond the range of a perfect soft landing, inflation risks do remain, and there is not enough data to support next year.” interest rate cut.”

The figures are all updated before the deadline, please refer to the actual quotation.