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Last night, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stabilized at 40,000 points and Apple's market value hit an all-time high.

On July 15 (Monday), local time, the three major U.S. stock indices closed higher. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.53%, the Nasdaq rose 0.40%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.28%.

On the news front, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said that if the Fed waits until inflation reaches 2% before cutting interest rates, it would wait too long; the test now is that officials want to be sure that inflation is falling, and more good data will increase confidence, and the Fed has been getting such good data recently.

Apple rose 1.67%, with its latest market value reaching a record high of $3.59 trillion. Morgan Stanley listed Apple as its top pick on Monday, raising its target price from $216 to $273 and maintaining its overweight rating.

Powell: If we wait until inflation drops to 2% before starting to cut interest rates, we will wait too long

On July 15, local time, the three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 210.82 points, or 0.53%, to 40,211.72 points; the Nasdaq rose 74.12 points, or 0.40%, to 18,472.57 points; and the S&P 500 rose 15.87 points, or 0.28%, to 5,631.22 points.

Most U.S. Treasury yields closed higher, with the 2-year Treasury yield down 0.2 basis points to 4.466%, the 3-year Treasury yield up 0.4 basis points to 4.243%, the 5-year Treasury yield up 2.6 basis points to 4.14%, the 10-year Treasury yield up 4.4 basis points to 4.236%, and the 30-year Treasury yield up 6 basis points to 4.461%.

International oil prices fell slightly, with the August contract of U.S. crude oil falling 0.3% to $81.96 per barrel, and the September contract of Brent crude oil falling 0.18% to $84.88 per barrel.

International precious metal futures closed with mixed gains and losses. COMEX gold futures rose 0.28% to $2,427.4 per ounce, and London gold spot rose 0.47% to $2,421.99 per ounce. COMEX silver futures fell 0.82% to $30.905 per ounce, and London silver fell 0.37% to $30.667 per ounce.

The S&P 500 index returned above 5,630 points. The Russell 2000 index rose nearly 2%, marking its best four-day winning streak in 2020.

Trump concepts rose by more than 28%, among which Trump Media and Technology Group rose by more than 31% and Rumble rose by more than 20%.

Blockchain stocks surged, with Marathon Digital, Riot, MicroStrategy, and Coinbase all rising by more than 10%. ETF analyst Eric Balciunas said on social media: "I heard that the SEC finally responded to the issuer today, asking them to return the final spot Ethereum ETF S-1 application documents on Wednesday and request it to take effect after the close of next Monday so that it can be issued on July 23, next Tuesday."

Powell said in an interview at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., that if the Fed waits until inflation reaches 2% before cutting rates, it will wait too long. The test now is that officials want to be confident that inflation is falling, and more good data will increase confidence, and the Fed has been getting this good data recently. "We didn't get any additional confidence in the first quarter, but the three data in the second quarter, including the data last week, did increase confidence to a certain extent," Powell said. At the same time, he said that policy seems restrictive, but not extremely restrictive. The neutral interest rate may have risen, and when the Fed is confident about inflation, it is time to act.

Nick Timiros, the "Fed Mouthpiece", wrote in his latest article that Fed Chairman Powell recently said that the recent slowdown in inflation and economic activity is generally in line with the Fed's expectations, but he still refused to say whether this is a reason for the Fed to cut interest rates at its policy meeting later this month. The inflation report released last week showed a general improvement in the economy, which prompted some private analysts to wonder whether the Fed needs to wait until September to cut interest rates. It should be noted that the Fed led by Powell usually avoids surprising the market with short-term policy decisions, so from this perspective, Powell's words today did not change the expectation that the Fed will keep interest rates stable at the August meeting.

“They want to really keep inflation in check, but there’s a growing recognition that if they overdo it, they could be at risk of a recession,” said Kathy Bosjancic, chief economist at Nationwide Mutual Insurance.

Apple's market value hits new high, Tesla Robotaxi launch delayed

In terms of sectors, 6 of the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 index rose and 5 fell. Among them, stocks in the energy and financial sectors led the gains.

Popular technology stocks rose and fell. Qualcomm rose more than 2%, Tesla, Apple, and Netflix rose more than 1%, Broadcom, Google A, Eli Lilly, Microsoft, and Cisco rose slightly, Texas Instruments, Intel, Meta, and Nvidia fell slightly, Amazon and AMD fell nearly 1%, TSMC and AMD fell more than 1%, ASML fell nearly 2%, and Arm and Micron Technology fell more than 2%.

Apple rose 1.67%, and its latest market value reached a record high of $3.59 trillion. Morgan Stanley listed Apple as its top pick on Monday, raising its target price from $216 to $273 and maintaining its overweight rating. Morgan Stanley analyst Eric Woodling believes that the launch of Apple's artificial intelligence platform has triggered a record wave of users upgrading their smartphones, tablets and computers.

Since Apple launched the Apple Smartphone, it has risen by more than 18%, exceeding the 7% increase of the Nasdaq 100 Index during the same period. Woodling believes that market demand will reach an all-time high when entering the iPhone 16 cycle later this year. He also believes that Apple Smartphone will bring superior unique practical value to more than 1.3 billion users, promote device upgrades and accelerate product replacement cycles. At the same time, the highest target price for Apple stock comes from Loop Capital, which raised the stock from hold to buy on Monday and raised its target price from $170 to $300. Analyst Ananda Barua wrote in a report that Apple is expected to become the consumer's preferred "home base" for generative artificial intelligence.

Google A rose 0.79%. According to Bloomberg, citing sources, Google's parent company Alphabet is in acquisition talks with cybersecurity startup Wiz, and the transaction value may be as high as US$23 billion. If successful, it will be Alphabet's largest acquisition to date. Wiz was founded in 2020 and focuses on cloud storage security, working with cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The acquisition is expected to help Google catch up with Microsoft and Amazon in the increasingly competitive cloud market. At the same time, as Alphabet faces multiple antitrust challenges, this large-scale acquisition may attract more attention from antitrust regulators.

Tesla rose 1.78%. Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted on Monday that the launch of Tesla's self-driving taxi Robotaxi, which was originally scheduled to debut in August, will be delayed. Musk responded to netizens on the X social media platform, saying: "I requested important design changes to the front of the Robotaxi. The extra time allows us to show something else." Wall Street analysts and Tesla investors pointed out that the delay of the self-driving taxi launch is not surprising because the road to developing self-driving taxis and autonomous driving systems faces multiple engineering and regulatory obstacles.

In addition, according to Business Insider, in May this year, Musk told the 4680 battery research and development team to cut costs and scale up a key innovation by the end of this year. One of the people familiar with the matter said that in recent months, Musk told them that he wanted to see a solution to the technical problem of batteries breaking down on their own during use.

Netflix rose 1.37%. Streaming giant Netflix will announce its second-quarter results after the U.S. stock market closes on July 18. Wall Street currently expects Netflix's Q2 revenue to increase 16% year-on-year to $9.52 billion, with earnings per share expected to be $4.54. In the first quarter of this year, Netflix's net new subscribers reached 9.33 million, far exceeding the market's expectation of 4.84 million. As of the end of the first quarter, the company had 269.6 million users worldwide.

Large bank stocks rose more than fell. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo rose more than 2%, Morgan Stanley rose more than 1%, Citigroup and Bank of America rose slightly, and UBS and BlackRock fell slightly.

Goldman Sachs rose 2.57%. Goldman Sachs disclosed its second-quarter financial report on Monday, showing that Goldman Sachs' net revenue in the second quarter was US$12.73 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17%, higher than the previous market consensus of US$12.39 billion; earnings per share applicable to US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) were US$8.62, higher than the market consensus of US$8.35. Among them, Goldman Sachs' fixed income, currency and commodities (FICC) business revenue in the second quarter was US$3.18 billion, a year-on-year increase of 17%; investment banking business revenue was US$1.73 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21%; stock sales and trading business revenue was US$3.17 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%. Kenneth Lyon, research director of CFRA Research, said in a report that Goldman Sachs is expected to get higher returns from investment banking fees given the sharp increase in backlogs, and he rated Goldman Sachs' stock as a buy. "We are still very capable of benefiting from the continued recovery of economic activity, although capital markets and M&A activities are improving, they are still below historical averages," said David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs.

Bank of America rose 0.72%. Bank of America said that as interest rate pressures ease, the Federal Reserve will shift its focus from inflation to economic growth, and the market expects earnings to expand to companies other than large technology companies, which is a favorable background for cyclical stocks. The bank's strategists said in a report to clients on Monday that now is a good time for the market to rotate toward cyclical stocks that are sensitive to interest rates. Inflation is contained, which means that the Federal Reserve can focus only on growth, the market expects interest rate cuts, and companies other than the Big Seven are emerging from a profit recession. Bank of America focuses on cyclical sectors such as industrials, automobiles, energy, metals and banks.

Most energy stocks closed higher. Murphy Oil rose more than 2%, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and ConocoPhillips rose more than 1%, Petrobras rose slightly, and Shell, US Energy, and BP fell slightly.

Popular Chinese concept stocks generally closed lower, with the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index down 3.64%. Baidu fell nearly 6%, JD.com, iQiyi, and Bilibili fell more than 5%, Xpeng Motors, Weibo, and Weilai fell nearly 5%, New Oriental fell more than 4%, Li Auto, Huya, and Pinduoduo fell more than 3%, Alibaba fell more than 2%, Douyu, Tencent Music, Manbang, and Futu Holdings fell more than 1%, and NetEase rose nearly 1%.

Editor: Li Dan

Proofreading: Yang Lilin

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