News from the Financial Associated Press, April 6 (edited by Niu Zhanlin)On Wednesday, Eastern Time, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed after a series of weak economic data exacerbated the market’s concerns about a recession, and Wall Street sought hedging.
Data showed that U.S. ADP employment rose by just 145,000 in March, well below expectations for a gain of 210,000, while wage growth slowed, underscoring signs of cooling demand in the labor market.
Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said the March employment data was one of several signals that the U.S. economy was slowing, with employers pulling back from the strong hiring and sharp wage increases a year ago, and the labor market cooling.
The number of U.S. job vacancies fell in February, falling below 10 million for the first time in nearly two years, a sign that employers are less demanding workers.
The ISM manufacturing activity index in the United States fell to 46.3 in March from 47.7 in February, the lowest level since May 2020. The index has been below 50, which represents the watershed between expansion and contraction, for five consecutive months. The US ISM non-manufacturing index fell to 51.2 in March, lower than the expected 54.6 and the previous value of 55.1.
This series of economic data shows that US economic growth is cooling, or hinting at the arrival of recession.
The Fed’s Mester also said on the same day that they have to go a little higher from the current interest rate and then maintain it at this level for a period of time to ensure that inflation falls to 2% on a sustainable downward path. Mester also does not expect policymakers to cut rates this year.
Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said recession risks have increased and the outlook for equities is challenging. As the slowdown in the U.S. economy becomes more pronounced, we believe investors should brace for a peak in interest rates and consider opportunities in bonds.
“Because the Fed’s rate hikes are coming to an end, we’ve probably moved from ‘bad news is good news’ to ‘bad news is bad news’, with recession fears becoming the market’s mainstay,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO and portfolio manager at InfraCap. Main theme.”
Market Dynamics
As of the close, the Dow rose 80.34 points, or 0.24%, to 33482.72; the Nasdaq fell 129.47 points, or 1.07%, to 11996.86; the S&P 500 fell 10.22 points, or 0.25%, to 4090.38.
Most of the 11 sectors of the S&P 500 Index closed down. Among them, the optional consumer sector closed down 2.04%, the worst performance, the industrial sector fell 1.3%, the information technology/technology sector fell about 1.2%, and the daily consumer goods sector did not rise. 0.6%, the energy sector rose by more than 1.4%, the health care sector rose by more than 1.7%, and the utilities sector rose by about 2.6%.
Most of the ETFs in the U.S. stock industry closed down. The Internet stock index ETF closed down 2.13%, and the consumer discretionary ETF fell 2.05%. The global aviation industry ETF, technology industry ETF, global technology stock index ETF, and regional bank ETF fell between 1.47% and 1.01%. , Banking ETFs fell 0.64%, financial ETFs fell 0.09%, daily consumer goods ETFs rose less than 0.5%, energy ETFs rose 1.46%, medical ETFs rose 1.73%, and utilities ET rose 2.59%.
Hot Stock Performance
Large technology stocks generally fell, Amazon fell more than 2%, Apple, Netflix, Meta fell more than 1%, Google, Microsoft fell slightly. Tesla fell 3.75%, and its daily line fell for three consecutive days, with a cumulative decline of 10.65%.
Artificial intelligence concept stocks continued yesterday’s decline. BigBear.ai Holdings fell more than 18%, C3.ai fell more than 15%, and SoundHound AI fell more than 12%.
Bank stocks were mostly lower even after the deposit information from Alliance Western Bank. Alliance Western Bank fell more than 12%, First Republic Bank fell 2.54%, and Westpac Bank fell nearly 5%.
The semiconductor sector fell, with Nvidia down 2.1%, AMD down 3.45%, and Intel down nearly 1%. Google previously claimed that its AI supercomputer is faster and more energy-efficient than the Nvidia A100.
Johnson & Johnson rose 4.5 percent after the company proposed paying at least $8.9 billion to thousands of plaintiffs suing the company, in what would be one of the largest product liability payouts ever. The plaintiffs alleged that the use of Johnson & Johnson’s talc-containing powder caused cancer.
Most of the popular Chinese concept stocks fell, and the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 2.7%. Kaixin Auto fell more than 8%, Kingsoft Cloud fell more than 6%, New Oriental and iQiyi fell more than 5%, Tencent Music, TAL, BOSS Zhipin fell more than 3%, Manbang, Baidu, Weilai fell more than 2%, Bilibili, JD.com, Xiaopeng Motors, etc. fell more than 1%.
company news
[Deposits at Alliance Western Bank stabilize]
U.S. regional bank Alliance West Bank said total deposits at the end of the first quarter were $47.6 billion, down 11% from the previous quarter. The bank’s deposit balance has stabilized since March 20. Deposits rose another $1.2 billion between March 31 and April 4, the bank added. The bank’s net deposit outflows totaled $6 billion in the first quarter. Moreover, its total insurance deposits now account for 68% of total deposits, significantly higher than the 55% level disclosed by the bank as of March 16.
【Meta plans to commercialize its proprietary generative artificial intelligence by the end of this year】
According to new reports, Meta plans to commercialize its proprietary generative artificial intelligence for generating advertising images by the end of this year. “We’ve been investing in artificial intelligence for more than a decade and have one of the world‘s leading research institutions,” Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer, said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday local time. We have a huge research facility with hundreds of people.”
[Meta releases SAM, an AI model that can recognize objects in images and videos]
Meta on Wednesday released an artificial intelligence model that can pick out individual objects from images, along with an image annotation dataset it says is the largest of its kind. Meta’s research arm said in a blog post that its SAM can recognize objects in images and videos even when they were not encountered during training.
[The world‘s most shorted bank is located in Canada’s TD Bank with a short position of US$3.7 billion]
The data shows that the most shorted banks in the world are not located in Switzerland or Silicon Valley, but in the relatively calm Canadian financial center. According to the analysis of S3 Partners, short sellers have increased their short bets on Toronto Dominion Bank in recent weeks, with a total value of about US$3.7 billion, ranking first among global financial institutions, surpassing BNP Paribas and Bank of America. Part of that has to do with current market anxiety about the banking sector as a whole, with little sign of Canadian banks having any of the liquidity issues investors are concerned about. But analysts pointed to investor concerns about TD’s exposure to a slowing real estate market, its ties to the U.S. market and a proposed acquisition of a regional bank.