Breakfast | NVIDIA hits a record high for 4 consecutive days, media reports suggest Musk may become a consultant to Trump

Good morning! A great day starts with making money.

Overnight Morning Market

US stock index futures continued to decline after the US stock market closed, with Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures falling over 1%, while Dow futures dropped by 1.8%.

On Wednesday, European and American bond prices generally fell, with rising yields putting pressure on the stock market. US stocks collectively fell, with the Dow hitting a four-week low. All major sectors of the S&P 500 suffered losses.

NVIDIA rose by 0.8%, marking the fourth consecutive trading day of reaching a new closing high and a cumulative increase of over 20%. The net worth of the company's founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, surpassed $100 billion for the first time, reaching $100.7 billion, ranking 15th on the global rich list.

Tesla fell by 0.3%, Meta dropped nearly 1.2%; Microsoft fell by nearly 0.3%, Alphabet dropped by nearly 0.4%, Apple rose by nearly 0.2% for the third consecutive day, and Netflix rose by nearly 0.9% for the third consecutive day.

Faraday Future Intelligent Electric fell by 62.57%, GME fell by 10.68%, AMC fell by 7.89%. KOSS fell by over 6%.

Overall, popular Chinese concept stocks fell. ZEEKR dropped by 4.5%, XPeng fell by 2.7%, Li Auto fell by over 1%, Nio rose by 0.6%. Bilibili fell by 2%, Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent fell by nearly 2%, NetEase fell by 1.8%, Baidu fell by over 1%, Pinduoduo rose by 1%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

According to CNBC: Activist investor Nelson Peltz liquidates Disney stocks.

Apple hints at developing a TV+ app for Android phones.

According to CNBC: Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation plan faces opposition from the CEO of the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

HP's first-quarter revenue was $12.8 billion, exceeding market expectations of $12.6 billion, compared to $12.91 billion in the same period last year.

C3.ai's first-quarter revenue was $87 million, exceeding market expectations of $84 million, compared to $72.4 million in the same period last year.

DiDi's first-quarter revenue increased by 14.9% year-on-year to 49.1 billion yuan, with adjusted EBITA profit of 900 million yuan.

US electric car maker Fisker announces layoffs of hundreds of employees.

Virgin Galactic receives a notice from the NYSE regarding continued listing standards and intends to comply with NYSE regulations.

NASA: Will continue to advance the launch plan of Boeing's Starliner on June 1.

Bank of America's exit from the Payment Clearing Association, PayPal responds: Will be succeeded by PayPal to continue participating in the association's work

The China Payment Clearing Association issued an announcement canceling the membership of 6 units, including Bank of America's subsidiary, Bank of America Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. PayPal responded: "Bank of America under PayPal actively applied to exit the Payment Clearing Association, and in the future, PayPal's subsidiary, PayPal Payment (Beijing) Co., Ltd., will fully represent PayPal in participating in the association's work."

McDonald's: There are viral social media posts and reports claiming that McDonald's price increases far exceed the inflation rate, which is "inaccurate." The company will continue to focus on value and affordability. The average price of a Big Mac is $5.29, up 21% since 2019Market News: Sony Music is reportedly in talks to acquire the music catalog of Queen, with a potential deal value of $1 billion.

The mega mining merger deal falls through as BHP Billiton abandons the $49 billion acquisition of Anglo American Resources.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

The European Union announces the establishment of an Artificial Intelligence Office, consisting of 140 members including technical experts, lawyers, and economists, with the aim of protecting citizens from the potential harm of this emerging technology. On the 21st of this month, the EU Council officially approved the "Artificial Intelligence Act," the world's first comprehensive regulation on artificial intelligence.

OpenAI: All ChatGPT free users can now access browsing, visual, data analysis, file upload, and multiple GPTs. The company partners with the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) to assist over 100 news publishers in exploring and integrating artificial intelligence in their newsrooms.

Cloud software giant Salesforce reports revenue below expectations for the first time since 2006, with a 17% post-market stock price plunge

Salesforce's first-quarter revenue is $9.13 billion, an 11% year-on-year increase, slightly below the market expectation of $9.15 billion; the adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter are expected to be $2.34 to $2.36, with revenue of $9.2 billion to $9.25 billion, while analysts expect earnings per share of $2.40 and revenue of $9.37 billion. If the stock market opens on Thursday with a similar decline to the post-market on Wednesday, Salesforce is set to have its worst single-day performance since the 2008 financial crisis.

Samsung Electronics is expected to expand its partnership with AMD in the United States to jointly manufacture 3-nanometer GAA architecture process chips.

Salary negotiations fail, and Samsung Electronics union plans the company's first strike in history.

Apple plans to develop custom chips for confidential computing to protect user privacy

Apple plans to process data from artificial intelligence applications in a virtual black box, making it inaccessible to its employees. The approach is conceptually similar to confidential computing, an industry term meaning data remains confidential even during processing.

Cryptocurrency

BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust: will be listed and traded on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "ETHA".

ETF analyst Eric Balchunas suggests that other issuers may soon follow suit, with SEC staff providing another round of fine-tuning feedback. Launching (spot Ethereum ETF) by the end of June is a legitimate possibility, with my bet date being July 4th.

Market News: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has no plans to introduce Solana cryptocurrency futures.

Startups and IPO Opportunities

According to The Information: CoreWeave, a cloud service startup supported by NVIDIA, is preparing to apply for an IPO in the first half of 2025.

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Federal Reserve Beige Book: Economic activity in the United States continues to expand, but businesses are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economic outlook. Wage growth remains moderate, and it is expected that prices will continue to grow moderately in the near term.

Goldman Sachs: The Bank of Japan will cautiously proceed with quantitative tightening, as the comprehensive passive contraction of the Japanese government bond investment portfolio will hinder the pace of other major central banks' QT plans.

According to The Wall Street Journal: Sources say that US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Elon Musk discussed the possibility of Musk serving as an advisor if Trump wins the 2024 US presidential election.

This year, the issuance of European bonds has exceeded the milestone of 1 trillion euros, breaking the record set on June 9, 2020.

IMF has raised its growth forecast for the Chinese economy this year by 0.4 percentage points to 5%.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs: At the invitation of the US, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Chaoxu will visit the United States from May 30 to June 2.

Red Sea crisis continues, global third-largest shipping giant raises sea freight prices

Companies shipping goods from Asia will need to pay up to $10,000 for an urgent full-size container in the next month, about twice the current spot price.

Investors continue to flock to cross-border wealth management, with 13,000 new individual investors in April, the second-highest since the service was launched, with the highest being 24,000 in March.

Data from the China Real Estate Research Institute shows that since the introduction of the new real estate policies on May 17, over 80% of cities nationwide have implemented reductions in down payment ratios and interest rates. Currently, the policy effects have been reflected in indicators such as property viewing volume, second-hand housing transaction activity, and the turnover rate of "internet-famous" properties.

China may invest around 6 billion yuan in the research and development of all-solid-state batteries, with six companies including CATL, BYD, FAW, SAIC, WeLan New Energy, and Geely potentially receiving government support for basic research and development