Apple has a new move again.
On November 1st (Friday) local time, the three major US stock indexes collectively closed higher. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.69%, the Nasdaq rose 0.80%, and the S&P 500 index rose 0.41%.
In terms of economic data, the non farm payroll in the United States increased by 12000 people in October, marking the lowest monthly employment growth since December 2020. It is estimated to increase by 105000 people, with the previous value revised downwards by 31000 people to 223000 people. The unemployment rate in the United States for October was 4.1%, estimated at 4.1%, compared to the previous value of 4.1%.
Next week, the Federal Reserve will hold its 7th monetary policy meeting of the year. In addition, for the global financial markets, there will be fluctuations brought about by the US presidential election next week.
In terms of individual stocks, it is reported that Apple will acquire software development company Pixelmator to add a high-end photo editing application to its product lineup. In addition, Apple announced on Friday that it will invest approximately $1.5 billion in satellite communication company Globalstar to expand the satellite services of the iPhone. Affected by the news, Globalstar's stock price rose by 36% on Friday.
There will be multiple major events next week
On November 1st local time, the three major US stock indexes collectively closed higher. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 288.73 points, or 0.69%, to 42052.19 points; The Nasdaq rose 144.77 points, or 0.80%, to 18239.92 points; The S&P 500 index rose 23.35 points, or 0.41%, to 5728.80 points.
The S&P 500 index has ended two consecutive days of sharp decline. Tech giants led gains on Friday, with Amazon closing up 6.19% after strong performance. Intel rose 7.81% driven by analysts' bullish outlook. Microsoft plans to invest approximately $10 billion in CoreWeave between 2023 and 2030 to utilize its data centers to run artificial intelligence models. Supermicro computers fell over 10%, with a cumulative drop of nearly 45% this week, marking the worst weekly performance in history. Previously, Ernst&Young, the auditing firm of the company, resigned during the audit period. Analysts said that the possibility of the worst case scenario, such as the suspension or delisting of the supercomputer, is increasing.
On the news front, from November 6th to 7th local time, the Federal Reserve will hold its 7th monetary policy meeting of the year. In addition, for the global financial markets, there will be fluctuations brought about by the US presidential election next week.
EToro's Bret Kenwell said, "We are currently in a busy period of economic data, corporate earnings, the Federal Reserve, and the US election. These events have brought some additional volatility, but so far, the big picture has not changed. Until this situation changes, the long-term driving factors of the bull market will remain unchanged
Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett suggests that investors should consider selling their stocks if Trump's election victory leads to a stock market rally, which is consistent with Citigroup's advice this week. Hartnett pointed out that if Trump wins the presidential election, he may implement tax cuts and immigration control policies, push up inflation and interest rates, and pose risks to the stock market. However, the general view on Wall Street is that Trump's victory will boost US stocks, as his proposal to lower corporate taxes is beneficial to corporate profits. Recently, with the market predicting a bullish outlook on Trump's victory, the S&P 500 index has significantly risen.
In terms of economic data, the US Department of Labor released data on Friday showing that non farm payroll employment in the United States increased by 12000 in October, with an estimated increase of 105000. The previous value was revised downwards by 31000 to 223000. This is the lowest monthly employment growth since December 2020. The unemployment rate in the United States for October was 4.1%, estimated at 4.1%, compared to the previous value of 4.1%.
The Acting Secretary of Labor of the United States stated that many companies have stopped recruiting due to the hurricane, and the overall labor market trend remains positive. Regarding the impact of hurricanes on non farm payroll reports, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced that it is unable to quantify this effect.
Although the Federal Reserve may attribute some of the weakness in today's data to one-time factors, the weakness in today's data indicates that the Fed will continue its easing cycle at next week's meeting. The data is volatile, but the prospect of a rate cut on November 25th is bright, "said Lindsay Rosner of Goldman Sachs Asset Management
Scott Ren from the Investment Research Institute of Wells Fargo stated that due to distortions related to weather and strikes, this report is difficult to accurately analyze, but this will not change our view that the labor market will further slow down in the coming months. This should allow the Federal Reserve to continue cutting interest rates by 25 basis points at its November and December meetings.
Other market aspects. The US dollar index rose, with the US dollar index, which measures the US dollar against six major currencies, rising 0.29% on the day and closing at 104.281 at the end of the foreign exchange market. As of the end of the New York currency market, 1 euro was exchanged for 1.0839 US dollars, lower than the previous trading day's 1.0872 US dollars; 1 pound is exchanged for 1.2926 US dollars, higher than the previous trading day's 1.2883 US dollars.
International oil prices have risen. As of the close of the day, the price of light crude oil futures for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 23 cents, closing at $69.49 per barrel, an increase of 0.33%; The London Brent crude oil futures price for delivery in January 2025 rose by 28 cents, closing at $73.10 per barrel, an increase of 0.40%.
Apple's acquisition is a big deal! Pixelmator joins the camp
In terms of sectors, the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 index rose 5 times and fell 6 times. Among them, the non essential consumption sector led the rise, with an increase of 2.40%, while the information technology sector rose by 0.61%. The utility sector led the decline with a 2.26% drop.
Popular technology stocks rise more and fall less. Intel rose nearly 8%, Amazon rose over 6%, Nvidia rose nearly 2%, Qualcomm, Cisco, Oracle, TSMC rose over 1%, Microsoft rose nearly 1%, Texas Instruments, ASML, Arm, Google A, Micron Technology, Netflix rose slightly, Meta, Tesla, Broadcom fell slightly, Apple and AMD fell over 1%, and AMD fell over 10%.
Microsoft rose by 0.99%. According to The Information, CoreWeave recently revealed to investors that Microsoft plans to use CoreWeave's data centers to run its artificial intelligence models between 2023 and 2030, with an expected investment of approximately $10 billion. This amount is much higher than previous estimates of Microsoft's partnership with CoreWeave, making Microsoft CoreWeave's largest customer. According to reports, CoreWeave told investors that the total amount of contracts it has signed has reached $17 billion, but did not specify the time span. In addition, on October 22nd, Core Scientific announced that CoreWeave has exercised its final option to expand infrastructure and further expand the scale of cooperation based on the 200 megawatt high-performance computing (HPC) hosting contract reached on June 3rd.
Apple fell 1.33%. According to Bloomberg, Apple will acquire software development company Pixelmator to add a high-end photo editing application to its product lineup. Pixelmator announced in its blog that its team based in Lithuania will join Apple. Pixelmator was founded by brothers Solius Dalyd and Ada Dalyd, with a history of 17 years. It mainly develops image editing applications for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and is widely favored by Apple users.
Pixelmator Pro is the company's flagship application, providing advanced editing features such as layer and vector tools, similar to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Pixelmator Pro also combines multiple unique Apple technologies such as iCloud, Shortcut Commands, and iPad Pencil. This acquisition is Apple's first foray into the high-end image editing field since it stopped offering Aperture ten years ago. At present, Apple has not disclosed the details of the transaction and has stated that it will not make significant changes to the existing applications of Pixelmator.
In addition, Apple disclosed in a securities filing on Friday that it will invest approximately $1.5 billion in satellite communications company Globalstar to expand iPhone's satellite services. This transaction includes a cash investment of $1.1 billion, of which $232 million will be used to repay Globalstar's existing debt, and Apple will also acquire a 20% stake in the company. The transaction is expected to be completed next Tuesday.
Since the launch of the iPhone emergency satellite messaging feature in 2022, Apple has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Globalstar services. This investment will help Globalstar purchase new satellites and expand ground infrastructure. Globalstar stated that it will continue to allocate approximately 85% of its network capacity to Apple. Affected by the news, Globalstar's stock price rose by 36% on Friday.
Meta fell 0.07%. Meta's appeal in the UK failed to prevent a class action lawsuit accusing it of abusing its dominant market position and profiting from user data. The UK Court of Appeal rejected Meta and its UK branch's appeal request on October 7th and issued a detailed ruling on Friday, stating that "there is no reason to grant leave to appeal".
The class action lawsuit was initiated by competition law expert Lisa Lovell Gomson on behalf of approximately 44 million Facebook users in the UK, accusing Meta's Facebook of using user data to exchange for platform usage rights and earning billions of pounds in revenue. The estimated claim amount is at least 3.2 billion US dollars. Meta has not yet commented on this.
Google A rose 0.11%. The Indonesian government announced a ban on the sale of Google Pixel phones, stating that its parent company Alphabet did not meet local content requirements. Although about 22000 Pixel phones have entered Indonesia through personal carriers this year, their sales are still considered illegal. Previously, Indonesia also banned the sale of iPhone 16 in the country due to Apple's failure to fulfill its investment commitments.
A spokesperson for the Indonesian Ministry of Industry stated that the local content policy aims to provide a fair competitive environment for all investors and promote the development of local industries. The Indonesian government plans to take action against stores selling Pixel and iPhone 16, and disable the device's IMEI number to prevent it from registering on the local communication network.
Financial stocks fluctuate in price. Mizuho Financial, Mastercard, and UBS Group rose more than 1%, American Express rose nearly 1%, First Capital Financial, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Visa, and Goldman Sachs rose slightly, Travelers Insurance, Bank of America, American International Group, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup fell slightly, United Bank of America fell nearly 1%, and regional finance fell more than 1%.
Energy stocks generally fell. Imperial Oil fell more than 5%, US Energy fell more than 3%, Brazilian Oil, Duke Energy, and Apache Oil fell more than 2%, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, ConocoPhillips, Murphy Oil, and Western Petroleum fell more than 1%, Schlumberger, BP, and Shell fell slightly, and Chevron rose more than 2%.
ExxonMobil fell 1.57%. According to the latest financial report, ExxonMobil's third quarter profit reached $8.6 billion, with earnings per share of $1.92; The cash flow generated from operating activities was $17.6 billion, and the free cash flow was $11.3 billion. The company announced a fourth quarter dividend of $0.99 per share, an increase of 4%, to be paid to ordinary shareholders registered at the close of business on November 14, 2024, on December 10, 2024.
ExxonMobil CEO Woodrow said that a large amount of global oil supply comes from shale oil in the United States. As the economy continues to grow, the world will break free from oversupply.
In addition, according to the buyer consortium (including Tok Group) on Friday, ExxonMobil has completed the sale of its Fos refinery in France. The sale has reduced ExxonMobil's refining capacity in Europe to approximately 1.1 million barrels per day. The Fos refinery is ExxonMobil's only refining asset in the Mediterranean market, and the new buyer Rhone Energies is owned by Entara LLC and the Tok Group.
Most popular Chinese concept stocks fell, while the Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.10%. Xiaopeng Motors rose more than 2%, Ideal Auto, New Oriental, and Futu Holdings rose slightly, NIO closed flat, Pinduoduo, Tencent Music, Manbang, Alibaba, and JD.com fell slightly, Bilibili and Weibo fell nearly 1%, Huya, Baidu, Miniso, Vipshop, and NetEase fell more than 1%, Douyu fell more than 2%, and iQiyi fell more than 5%.