The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) vice chairman nominee Brainard’s testimony at the hearing on Thursday (13th) was hawkish, technology stocks were bloody, the four major indexes closed in the dark, the Dow Jones fell more than 170 points, the Nasdaq closed Blackened by more than 2.5%, TSMC’s method was successful, and TSMC’s ADR hit a record high both intraday and closing.
Lael Brainard, the nominee for the vice chair of the Federal Reserve, attended the Senate nomination hearing on Thursday. The current high inflation wave will continue into the next few quarters. Reducing inflation is the most important task of the Federal Reserve. Open to a monthly rate hike.
Brainard is seen as one of the most dovish members of the Fed, but her testimony was in line with the Fed chair and officials, signaling a shift in her position.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank all now expect the Fed to raise interest rates four times this year. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans also said on Thursday that the Fed’s monetary policy stance is unfavorable to contain inflation, and it is good to predict three rate hikes in 2022, if the data does not improve enough. Quick, maybe a four-yard rate hike as well.
Before the deadline, according to data from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 319 million, and the number of deaths has exceeded 5.51 million. More than 9.60 billion doses of vaccines have been administered in 184 countries worldwide.
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Biden’s vaccine order against private companies after the Biden administration ordered U.S. companies with 100 or more employees to ensure employees are fully vaccinated or regularly screened for the new coronavirus by January 4.
The performance of the four major U.S. stock indexes on Thursday (13th):
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 176.7 points, or 0.49%, to 36,113.62.
- The Nasdaq lost 381.58 points, or 2.51 percent, to end at 14,806.81.
- The S&P 500 lost 67.32 points, or 1.42%, to end at 4,659.03.
- The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 89.4 points, or 2.29 percent, to 3,811.8.
Focus stocks
The five kings of science and technology have all fallen. Apple (AAPL-US) fell 1.90%; Meta (formerly Facebook) (FB-US) fell 2.03 percent; Alphabet (GOOGL-US) fell 2.01 percent; Amazon (AMZN-US) fell 2.42 percent; Microsoft (MSFT-US) fell 4.23%.
Dow Jones components closed in the dark. Salesforce (CRM-US) fell 3.87%; Nike (US-US) fell 1.72%; Disney (DIS-US) fell 1.5 percent; Boeing (BA-US) rose 2.97%; the development of heavy industry (CAT-US) rose 2.07%.
Fei and half of the constituent stocks fell a lot. AMD (AMD-US) fell 3.44%; NVIDIA (NVDA-US) fell 5.09%; Intel (INTC-US) fell 1.44%; Micron (MU-US) rose 0.54%; Qualcomm (QCOM-US) fell 1.36 percent; Applied Materials (AMAT-US) fell 1.49%.
Taiwan stock ADR was the best performer with TSMC. TSMC ADR (TSM-US) rose 5.26%; ASE ADR (ASX-US) fell 0.38%; UMC ADR (UMC-US) rose 1.24%; Chunghwa Telecom ADR (CHT-US) rose 0.54%.
Corporate News
TSMC ADR (TSM-US) opened higher by more than 9%, and once rose to 145 Dollar, set a new intraday high, and then its gains were pulled back, ending with a red 5.26% to 139.19 per share Dollar, hit a record closing high, the conversion price was 769.58 yuan, and the discount and premium rate reached 108.58 yuan.
TSMC (2330-TW) announced that the fourth-quarter financial report performed well, with a net profit after tax of 6.41 yuan per share, a record high in a single quarter. The operating outlook for the first quarter of this year is dazzling, and the estimated single-quarter revenue is about 16.6 billion to 17.2 billion.Dollar, the quarterly increase of 5.4% to 9.2%, higher than the legal person expected.
JPMorgan semiconductor analyst Gokul Hariharan expects TSMC’s full-year 2022 revenue to grow by as much as 25% as TSMC’s price hikes help boost its average selling price and secure more orders from Nvidia and Qualcomm.
Apple (AAPL-US) fell 1.90 percent to $172.19 a share. Despite being hit by supply chain constraints, analysts at JPMorgan Chase forecast Apple’s revenue of $119 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 to smash the previous record of $111.4 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Ford (F-US) rose 2.27% to 25.02 per share Dollar. Ford plans to ramp up production of electric vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover SUV and its best-selling electric pickup truck, the F-150. Deutsche Bank also named Ford as one of the best auto stocks for 2022.
Tesla (TSLA-US) fell 6.75% to 1,031.56 per share Dollar. Tesla’s official website has deleted Cybertruck’s production plan in 2022, which may be delayed until next year.
Alibaba (BABA-US) fell 4.48% to 131.37 per share Dollar. China’s top four state-owned asset management companies China Cinda announced on Thursday that it had withdrawn from its subscription to Ant Consumer Finance’s capital increase.
Economic data
- US December PPI increased 9.7%, expected 9.8%, the previous value was raised to 9.7% from 9.6%
- US December PPI rose 0.2%, expected 0.4%, the previous value was raised to 1.0% from 0.8%
- U.S. core PPI in December increased by 8.3% year-on-year, expected 8%, the previous value was raised to 7.9% from 7.7%
- US core PPI rose 0.5% in December, expected 0.5%, the previous value was raised to 0.9% from 0.7%
- The United States reported 230,000 initial claims of unemployment benefits last week (1/8), an expected 200,000, and the previous value of 207,000
- The United States last week (1/2) reported 1.559 million continuing unemployment benefits, 1.733 million is expected, the previous value was revised down from 1.754 million to 1.753 million
Wall Street Analysis
The effects of Omicron on the labor market are expected to be short-lived, but they will cause some volatility in the coming weeks, Jefferies said in a report.
The Fed has signaled it will aggressively tackle inflation this year, including raising interest rates and shrinking its balance sheet. A team of UBS strategists said in a report on Thursday that U.S. 10-year U.S. Treasury yields are expected to change, and U.S. inflation may rise in the third quarter as investors digest a more hawkish stance from the Federal Reserve and further increase inflation data. It peaked in one quarter and fell back during the year.
“When the Fed isn’t a friend of the stock market, investors sell on rallies, with multiple large tech stocks falling almost simultaneously from midday Thursday,” said Peter Boockvar, an analyst at Bleakley Advisory Group.
Christian Scherrmann, U.S. economist at DWS Group, said the continued high inflation rate and recent strong labor market data reinforce the Fed’s hawkish narrative. Looking ahead, Omicron looks set to decide the fate of the U.S. economy in January or even February, but for now Signs of how the coronavirus variant is playing out point to a continued exit from the Fed, likely to raise interest rates as early as March this year for the first time since December 2018.
(The figures are updated before the deadline, please refer to the actual quotation)