Even though the European and American markets were collectively closed on Friday, the never-ending capital market continued to roll. Today's Global Markets will include an overview of various asset trends in the first quarter, as well as a summary of the latest news related to Tesla, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
Global stock markets saw a general rise in March Q1, and there is still a commodity surge that surpasses Bitcoin!
In the just past March, major global stock indices were more or less in an upward trend. For investors in index funds, this is also a generally rewarding month. Of course, as far as individual stocks are concerned, the first quarter of this year is still in a state where technology concepts are leading the charge, such as the emerging "AI beneficiary stocks" in the US stock market, as well as the low short economy and Xiaomi automotive concept stocks that Chinese investors are passionate about.
The concept of technology also means that this track needs to constantly provide fresh hot concepts. Last year, the "tech giants" that drove the US stock market to continue strengthening, Apple and Tesla have already fallen behind in the first quarter of this year. Against this backdrop, the S&P 500 index has still hit a new closing high 22 times, thanks to strong support from Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta. These stocks alone contributed half of the S&P 500 index's increase.
Entering April, the capital market will increasingly closely monitor any news related to interest rate cuts. Currently, the mainstream market expectation for the first interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England is in June of this year.
A more stable expectation of interest rate cuts is also favorable for the global sovereign financing market, especially for emerging market bonds - international bonds from Argentina, Pakistan, Ukraine, and Egypt - all saw gains of over 20% in the first quarter of this year.
In the commodity market, with the approval of spot ETFs for listing, Bitcoin, which is about to be halved, has continued its huge upward trend. However, in the first quarter, news of continued crop failures in major African producing areas sparked speculation in New York cocoa futures, setting a new record of "cocoa being more expensive than copper". This asset has also surpassed Bitcoin to win the main commodity price championship with a 132% increase.
At the end of March, gold, which Buffett referred to as "you can go up and touch it, but there will be no response," ushered in another historic high moment of glory.
In addition to the background of the Federal Reserve's upcoming interest rate cut, gold is also seen as a hedge against fear of inflation (note that fear is not necessarily real inflation), as well as a hedge against fear of geopolitical uncertainty. Global central banks have purchased over 1000 tons of gold in the past two years, reaching a new high since the 1960s, and this data is also seen as a hedge against the hegemony of the US dollar.
Tesla's 6th Million New Car Offline
American tram giant Tesla announced on the X platform on Friday that it achieved its 6th millionth electric vehicle production line at the Fremont super factory that day.
(Source: X)
This is also a new milestone in the global tram industry. Tesla achieved the milestone of producing one million cars for the first time in March 2020, a full 12 years after the company was founded. It took nearly 18 months to reach the milestones of 2 million and 3 million vehicles, 7 months to reach the milestone of 3 million to 4 million, and only 6 months to reach the milestones of 5 million and 6 million.
Two messages from OpenAI
Although Europe and America have entered a holiday, the AI industry is still progressing rapidly.
OpenAI shared a preview called "Voice Engine" for the first time on its official website on Friday. By inputting text and 15 second audio samples, the Voice Engine can generate a natural speech that is very similar to the speaker in the audio.
For Chinese investors, a more interesting use case is voice translation - by giving an English speech, AI can generate a Chinese version of the sentence while retaining the speaker's accent, which is the state of "foreigners speaking Chinese".
(Source: OpenAI)
Due to the fact that this feature is too powerful and there is a clear risk of abuse, OpenAI only showcases the technology and does not imply large-scale deployment.
At the same time, the well-known science and technology innovation media The Information also disclosed a data center investment plan by Microsoft and OpenAI on Friday. The most attractive point is that the project investment amount may reach up to $115 billion, which is at least a scale of "million cards".
More importantly, the timeline is crucial. Microsoft hopes to complete the deployment of the Stargate supercomputer, an important milestone in the final stage of the project, by 2028, which means that this money will soon turn into revenue for various AI hardware stocks.
South Korean banks agree to compensate for losses from "snowball products", fearing resistance from retail investors
After South Korean financial regulatory authorities criticized some banks for false statements during the sale of "snowball products" - that is, during the ELS period - National Bank of Korea and Shinhan Bank both stated on Friday that their boards approved compensation for damaged investors in accordance with regulatory guidelines. These two banks are also the two largest financial institutions in the country to sell such high-risk structured products.
However, considering that the guidelines provided by South Korean regulators are to compensate the majority of investors for 20% -60% of their losses, the partial compensation plans of banks and securities firms may face strong opposition from some investors who hope to receive full compensation.
Other messages
[Shipping suspended in Bosporus Strait, Türkiye after a cargo ship failed]
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure of Türkiye issued a statement on March 29 local time, saying that two-way shipping in the Bosporus Strait was suspended due to the failure of a cargo ship. The Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and is one of the busiest maritime trade routes in the world.
The death toll from the Russian terrorist attack has risen to 144 people
According to Russian Health Minister Murashko's confirmation on March 29th, the terrorist attack on the Moscow State Concert Hall a week ago has resulted in 144 deaths. Among the 69 injured individuals currently receiving treatment in the hospital, one is extremely seriously injured. In terms of case investigation, the Basman District Court in Moscow approved on March 29th the detention of the 9th suspect, Nazlimad Lutfuloy, pending trial. The Russian Investigation Commission stated on the same day that it was investigating whether Ukrainian secret agents were involved in organizing and funding terrorist attacks.
[Bank of Russia: RMB has become the only and best choice for foreign exchange reserves]
The Russian Central Bank said on Friday that the RMB has become the only and best choice for Russia's foreign exchange reserves two years after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the massive freezing of Russian assets. The Russian Central Bank wrote in its 2023 Annual Report that many currencies of friendly countries face too many risks, such as high exchange rate volatility, low market liquidity, and even restrictions on capital flows, which pose obstacles to their use. Therefore, the central bank pointed out that there are almost no alternative currencies used as reserves other than the renminbi.
173 enterprises using Xiaolin Pharmaceutical's red yeast raw materials for production are still conducting independent investigations
According to information released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on March 29th local time, a self inspection conducted by 52 companies that purchased red yeast raw materials from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Company showed that in the past three years, these 52 companies have not received any reports of health damage to related products. At present, the independent investigation of 173 enterprises using Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Company's red yeast raw materials for production is still ongoing.
The US House of Representatives prohibits staff from using Microsoft Copilot
According to local media reports in the United States, the Chief Executive Officer of the House of Representatives, Catherine Szpindor, announced in the latest office guidelines that due to the threat of Microsoft Copilot leaking parliamentary data to non parliamentary approved cloud services, this application will be removed and blocked from all Windows devices in the House of Representatives. Microsoft responded that it hopes the upcoming government AI tool suite can address congressional concerns.
It is worth mentioning that in June last year, the House of Representatives also restricted the use of ChatGPT by staff, allowing only limited use of paid subscription versions and prohibiting the use of free versions.