News from the Financial Associated Press on December 8 (edited by Shi Zhengcheng)The market correction that began at the beginning of the week appeared to have entered a stalemate on Wednesday, with the three major U.S. stock indexes fluctuating in relatively narrow ranges throughout the day. As of the close, the S&P 500 index fell 0.19% to 3933.92 points; the Nasdaq index fell 0.51% to 10958.55 points; the Dow Jones index rose slightly by 1.58 points to 33597.92 points.
(Minute chart of the three major indexes, source: TradingView) Although the decline in the stock indexes was not so significant, the sharp drop in international crude oil futures for three consecutive days this week is enough to illustrate the market’s strong concerns about an economic recession, while the U.S. two-year/ten-year treasury bonds The increasingly violent inversion is undoubtedly the best evidence. At present, this key economic indicator is at its extreme value for nearly 40 years.
Nicholas Colas, founder of research firm DataTrek, said the key metric is in a state of extremes that is clearly spooking stock investors. The last time we saw this was at the beginning of the “Volcker recession” and the Fed had already started cutting rates, but the current Fed is still talking about continuing to raise rates and maintain a restrictive policy status. The market judges that there will soon be another artificial economic contraction – “Powell recession”.
Catherine Wood, a well-known science and technology investor, also came out to make up for it at the right time, emphasizing that the Federal Reserve is making serious policy mistakes, and deflation is a more serious risk than inflation.
Azhar Iqbal, an analyst at Wells Fargo, also said on Wednesday that a range of economic indicators point to an impending recession, with the S&P 500 peaking on average four months before the start of a recession in the past few business cycles.
Hot Stock Performance
The 11 sectors in the S&P 500 continued their majority losses on Wednesday. The communication services (-0.93%) and information technology (-0.51%) sectors performed the worst, while the health care, must-have consumer and real estate sectors maintained their gains at the close.
(Performance of the S&P 500 index sector, source: Fidelity) Large technology stocks continued to weaken, with Apple down 1.38%, Microsoft down 0.31%, Google down 2.10%, Amazon up 0.24%, Tesla down 3.21%, and Meta down 0.17% %.
Chinese concept stocks, which have performed strongly recently, also experienced adjustments on Wednesday, and the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index closed down 2.83%.
Most popular Chinese concept stocks also fell, among which Tencent ADR fell 1.61%, Alibaba fell 3.41%, JD.com fell 3.15%, Bilibili rose 5.64%, Netease rose 0.28%, and Baidu fell 2.34%.
company news
[Apple has launched a number of new data protection features that even the company itself cannot crack]
Apple announced on Wednesday that it will launch three user data protection features, including contact authentication, support for Apple ID physical security locks, and end-to-end encryption for iCloud backup data to ensure that even if Apple itself is hacked , most of the user’s data remains safe. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said the feature will be open for testing starting Wednesday and rolled out to users worldwide in 2023.
[Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase expects revenue to be cut by at least half in 2022]
Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, said in an interview with the media on Wednesday that the company’s revenue and EBITDA in 2021 will be $7 billion and $4 billion respectively. Maybe half or less.
Analysts currently expect Coinbase’s 2022 revenue to be $3.2 billion on average, a drop of nearly 60% from 2021. As of Wednesday’s close, Coinbase’s share price has fallen by 83% year-to-date.
[Market rumors: Musk promotes the president of Tesla China as the global CEO]
According to domestic media Pinwan on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter, Musk has chosen to appoint Zhu Xiaotong as Tesla’s global CEO. According to public information, Zhu Xiaotong joined Tesla Motors in April 2014 as the project director of Tesla China’s super charging station. In December 2014, Wu Bixuan, Tesla’s global vice president and president of China, resigned, and Zhu Xiaotong, director of the super charging station project, took over.
During a November trial on Musk’s compensation, Tesla director James Murdoch testified that Musk had found a successor to lead Tesla over the past few months, but did not name him. Neither Tesla nor Musk had responded to the news as of press time.
[Activist investors call for the removal of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink]
On Wednesday local time, the activist investment organization Bluebell Capital told the media that the company believes that BlackRock has failed to fulfill its commitment on ESG issues and called for the removal of CEO Larry Fink. Giuseppe Bivona, partner and co-founder of Bluebell, said that BlackRock had made a commitment to clients to exit investment in thermal coal in 2020, “When coal prices were around $76/ton, BlackRock started discussing divestment; When the price goes up to $380, they don’t talk about environmental responsibility.”
In response, BlackRock’s latest response stated that Bluebell’s proposal was not in the best economic interests of the company’s clients.