Closing: U.S. stocks closed slightly lower, with the Dow briefly breaking through the 40,000-point mark

Special topic: The dividend market is expected to continue for a long time, but we need to be wary of short-term reexamination to see the latest market situation. In the early morning of the 17th, Beijing time, U.S. stocks closed slightly lower on Thursday.
The Dow once exceeded the 40,000-point mark during the session.
The market continues to focus on U.S. stock earnings reports and the outlook for the Federal Reserve\’s monetary policy.
Many Federal Reserve officials gave speeches. Cleveland Fed President Mester said that high interest rate policies should be maintained for a longer period of time.
The Dow fell 38.62 points, or 0.10%, to 39869.38 points; the Nasdaq fell 44.07 points, or 0.26%, to 16698.32 points; the S&P 500 fell 11.05 points, or 0.21%, to 5297.10 points.
On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to a maximum of 40051.05 points.
The Nasdaq rose to 16,797.83 points. The S&P 500 index rose to 5,325.49 points. Both hit new intraday record highs.
Many Federal Reserve officials gave speeches on Thursday, including Federal Reserve Governor Barr, Richmond Fed President Barkin, Cleveland Fed President Mester, Atlanta Fed President Bostic, etc.
Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said policymakers need more data to be confident that inflation is moving toward the Fed\’s 2% target.
She suggested officials keep interest rates high for longer to achieve that goal.
Mester reiterated that monetary policy is now in a good position, adding that she expects price growth to cool more slowly than last year as improvements from supply chain disruptions have diminished.
She said: Upcoming economic information indicates that it will take longer to gain such confidence.
As our understanding of the path of inflation becomes clearer, it would be prudent to maintain our suppressive stance for longer at this time.
Mester said earlier this week that policy was in a good place. It was too early to say that inflation progress was stalling.
She reiterated that sentiment Thursday.
\”Our current monetary policy stance puts us in a good position to manage risks that may arise,\” she said in her speech. \”There is insufficient evidence to convince us that inflation is falling back to 2% sustainably and in a timely manner. It is premature.\” Or lowering interest rates too quickly will risk undoing the progress we have made on inflation.
Mester has a vote in decision-making this year.
She will step down when her term expires at the end of June.
The next meeting of Fed policymakers will be held on June 11-12.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari reiterated on Wednesday that the central bank may need to keep interest rates at current levels for some time and questioned the extent to which interest rates are suppressing the U.S. economy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Powell made it clear on Tuesday that he believes the Fed will need at least one quarter of data to truly determine whether inflation is steadily declining toward 2%.
This means that the Fed will need more than three inflation reports before it has the confidence to lower interest rates from a 23-year high. If the data supports a rate cut, the Fed may cut interest rates for the first time in September.
In terms of economic data on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the week ended May 11 was 222,000. It was expected to be 220,000. The previous value was 231,000.
Continuing claims rose to 1.79 million for the week ended May 4.
The U.S. import price index in April rose 0.9% month-on-month. Expected 0.30%. The previous value was 0.40%.
The annualized number of new housing starts in the United States in April was 1.36 million. It was expected to be 1.42 million. The previous value was 1.321 million.
The total number of building permits in April was 1.44 million households. It was expected to be 1.485 million households. The previous value was 1.458 million households.
The U.S. Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index in May was 4.5. Expected 8. The previous value was 15.5.
The CPI inflation data released on Wednesday was lower than expected, pushing the major stock indexes to record highs.
The S&P 500 index exceeded 5,300 points for the first time.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported on Wednesday that the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.3% month-on-month in April, slightly lower than the 0.4% estimate by Dow Jones.
The index is up 3.4% from a year ago.
The CPI index is a measure of the cost price of goods and services.
U.S. CPI inflation data strengthened market bets that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates this year.
After the data was released, investors\’ appetite for risk assets improved and concerns about rising inflation eased.
Another retail sales data released on Wednesday showed that strong consumer demand has weakened.
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that U.S. retail sales in April increased by 0% month-on-month, lower than market expectations of 0.4%. The previous value was revised from 0.7% to 0.6%.
Most of the spending during the month was on necessities such as food and gasoline.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: The combination of slowing growth and softening inflation is a great gift for the stock market.
For investors, there is nothing more enticing than the smell of falling interest rates in the future.
JPMorgan Chase said April\’s CPI data gave people a sigh of relief. Inflation is returning to a downward trajectory. It still believes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates for the first time in July. But this may need to see labor market activity cool down further to achieve this.
Morgan Stanley said they expect inflation to cool down more in the future, especially in the second half of the year. They believe the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates for the first time in September this year.
Goldman Sachs said they maintain their expectation that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates for the first time by 25 basis points in July. From then on, the Fed is expected to cut interest rates once a quarter.
Focus Stocks NVIDIA will announce its quarterly results on May 22. Its stock has been bullish by many investment banks.
KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts set a price target for Nvidia\’s stock price at $1,200.
Prior to this, Goldman Sachs recently gave a 12-month target price of US$1,100 (from US$875 before March). Because the institution increased its EPS (earnings per share) forecast for the fiscal years from 2025 to 2027. The average increase was 8%. Indicating continued strong AI server demand and supply improvement.
Tesla CEO Musk recently revealed the launch date of the Cybertruck pickup’s fully autonomous driving (FSD) function.
Cybertruck has been on the market for more than half a year. However, Tesla has not provided this important function of FSD on the electric pickup truck.
Musk confirmed that Cybertruck will get v12.5 version of FSD.
For Tesla, enabling the FSD function on the Cybertruck will be a major test because it is the first time this feature has been applied to this model.
HHLR Advisors, a fund owned by Hillhouse, released data on U.S. stock holdings as of the end of the first quarter of 2024 on Wednesday.
The highlight of the institution in the first quarter was to build positions in 20 stocks. Most of them were in the semiconductor and electronic technology fields. Such as AMD, Nvidia, TSMC, etc.; it also liquidated or was close to liquidating its holdings in many Internet stocks, including JD.com, Alibaba, and iQiyi. wait.
Market research firm Omdia issued an article on Thursday saying that it is very unlikely that Apple will launch a clamshell folding screen iPhone because it will compete with its own 6.1-inch to 6.9-inch iPhone products.
On the contrary, Apple may launch a 7.9-inch expandable book-style folding product. Compared to just expanding the screen size of the same device, it makes more sense to increase the screen size and user usage scenarios.
Microsoft disclosed in its \”2024 Environmental Sustainability Report\” on May 15, local time. In fiscal year 2023, the company\’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions (greenhouse gas emissions directly generated by the assets owned or operated by the company. As well as the company\’s external emissions) Emissions from purchased electricity, heating, and steam) decreased by 6.3% compared with 2020. However, Scope 3 emissions (emissions from the company\’s overall value chain) increased by 30.9%. The latter is mainly related to the construction of data centers.
Google recently held its annual I/O developer conference.
According to Google official statistics, in this 110-minute speech, Google CEO Pichai mentioned AI as many as 121 times. At the same time, he launched a series of products and services with AI as the core. He also launched a generated video that claimed to be more effective than Sora. Model Veo.
The entire press conference left a deep impression on Wall Street.
Five years after Amazon raised wages to $15 an hour, half of warehouse workers surveyed said they struggled to afford adequate food or shelter, according to a national study released May 15 by the University of Illinois at Chicago\’s Center for Urban Economic Development.
Researchers conducted a survey of 1,484 company employees in 42 states in the United States.
53% of respondents said they had experienced one or more forms of food insecurity in the past three months. 48% of respondents had experienced one or more forms of housing insecurity.
EU regulators said on Thursday they would investigate whether META violated the Digital Services Act on the protection of minors.
The European Commission said in a statement that it is concerned that the systems of Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta, including their algorithms, may stimulate behavioral addictions in children and create the so-called rabbit hole effect.
In addition, the European Commission also expressed concerns about Meta\’s age assurance and verification methods, adding that it will now prioritize an in-depth investigation and will continue to collect evidence by sending additional information requests, conducting interviews or inspections.
The EU further stated: The initiation of formal procedures empowers the European Commission to take further enforcement steps, such as provisional measures and non-compliance decisions.
Affected by the news that CME Group plans to launch Bitcoin spot trading, blockchain concept stocks generally rose.
Walmart\’s first-quarter revenue increased 6% year-on-year to US$161.5 billion, which was US$3.36 billion higher than market expectations.
Non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) was US$0.6, a year-on-year increase of 22.4%. It was US$0.08 higher than the market expectation.
Looking ahead. Walmart expects second-quarter revenue to grow 3.5% to 4.5%. Operating profit will grow 3% to 4.5%. Adjusted EPS will be 0.62 to 0.65 US dollars.
For full-year results, Walmart currently expects 2025 adjusted EPS to be at or slightly above the top end of previous guidance (previous guidance range was US$2.23 to US$2.37), higher than market expectations of US$2.37; revenue in 2025 is also expected The growth rate will be at or slightly higher than the top end of the previous guidance (the previous guidance range was 3% to 4%). The market expectation is 4.31%.
Cisco\’s third-quarter revenue exceeded expectations. It raised its full-year revenue guidance.
The share price of Chubb Insurance (Chubb) rose. Buffett made a large investment in the stock in the first quarter.
Baidu\’s first fiscal quarter results exceeded expectations.
iQIYI’s first fiscal quarter revenue exceeded expectations.
ZTO Express’ adjusted net profit in the first fiscal quarter increased by 15.8% year-on-year.
In other markets, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed up $0.60, an increase of 0.76%, at $79.23 per barrel.
The price of Brent crude oil futures for July delivery rose 52 cents, or 0.63%, to close at $83.27 per barrel.