Breakfast | Wall Street's big short sellers turn their backs, Microsoft launches Copilot+PC

Good morning! A great day starts with making money.

Overnight Morning Market

Federal Reserve officials reiterated a wait-and-see stance on interest rate decisions. Among the three major U.S. stock indexes, only the Dow closed lower, down 0.49%. The Nasdaq rose 0.65% to 16794.88 points, hitting a new closing high. The S&P 500 rose 0.09%, marking a two-day gain.

Tech giants "Big Seven" saw mixed performance, with Tesla performing the worst, closing down 1.4%. Microsoft rose 1.2%, Apple rose over 0.6%, marking a six-day gain. Alphabet rose nearly 0.5%, also marking a six-day gain. Netflix rose nearly 3.2%, marking a two-day gain. Amazon fell over 0.6%, marking a three-day decline. Nvidia rose by about 2.5%, Micron Technology rose by about 3%.

Retail investor favorites surged, with Faraday Future (FFIE.O) up 74%, GameStop (GME) up 4.4%, BlackBerry (BB) up 2%, AMC Theatres (AMC) up 9.8%; Koss (KOSS) surged over 10%.

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon Index fell 1.68%, Li Auto dropped nearly 13%, falling nearly 16.5% at one point during the day, marking the largest intraday decline since October 2022, dragged down by weak demand for Mega models affecting profits. Nio fell 1.1%, XPeng rose 0.6%, ZEEKR rose 4.3%. Haidilao US stocks (HDL) fell over 6%, Alibaba fell 0.3%, NetEase fell 0.2%, Pinduoduo rose 0.4%.

Blue Chips and Hot Stocks

Before the release of the earnings report on Wednesday, Nvidia's target price was raised by several institutions, with Stifel and Barclays expecting target prices to increase by nearly 30% and about 20% respectively from last Friday's closing.

Market News: Tesla shareholder group urges investors to vote against Musk's compensation agreement

Microsoft accelerates Win11 integration with Copilot, promoting Copilot+PC. The Windows 11 system and AICopilot in Bing will soon start using the GPT-4o model, supporting voice and computer vision.

Microsoft's "Copilot+PC" initially uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon XElite/Plus chip, but Intel will launch the new Lunar Lake processor and plans to collaborate with more than 20 OEM manufacturers to launch over 80 new laptops in the third quarter of this year.

According to South Korean media: Hyundai will produce hydrogen-powered supercars by 2026.

Ctrip's first-quarter revenue was 11.92 billion yuan, exceeding market expectations of 11.64 billion yuan, compared to 9.211 billion yuan in the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per ADS were 6.00 yuan, exceeding market expectations of 4.08 yuan.

Zoom's first-quarter revenue was $1.14 billion, slightly exceeding market expectations of $1.13 billion, compared to $1.105 billion in the same period last year.

Sohu's total revenue in the first quarter was $139 million, with brand advertising revenue of $16 million and online game revenue of $118 million.

Evergrande Auto: Suspended trading from May 17th pending the release of an announcement related to insider information. The company is expected to release an announcement regarding the insider information During the first hour of Tmall's 618 sales event, Apple's transactions exceeded 1.5 billion RMB, while Huawei, Xiaomi, and Vivo each had transactions exceeding 100 million RMB.

Li Auto's total revenue in the first quarter was 25.6 billion RMB (3.6 billion USD), a 36.4% increase from the first quarter of 2023 which was 18.8 billion RMB. The company's CEO, Li Xiang, mentioned that the second quarter is expected to be the most challenging quarter this year. Li Auto's L series orders are continuously growing, with no plans to reduce prices. The release of a pure electric SUV by Li Auto has been postponed to the first half of next year.

XPeng has started mass production of its end-to-end large-scale model. Chairman He Xiaopeng stated that automatic assisted driving will gradually transition to fully autonomous driving. XPeng's goal for end-to-end intelligent driving is to iterate internally every 2 days, increase intelligent driving capabilities by 18 times in 18 months, achieve nationwide driving capabilities in Q3 of this year, and provide a Level 4 autonomous driving experience by 2025.

AstraZeneca will establish a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility worth 1.5 billion USD in Singapore, dedicated to producing Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC) and targeted cancer therapies.

Chips and Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft announced the launch of a new category of AI-specific computers, claiming that the new AI-specific computers are 58% faster than the MacBook Air M3 chip. The Microsoft Developer Conference opening on Tuesday will have the opportunity to showcase its latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects.

NVIDIA CEO: Any company can access AI. The collaboration with Dell on the "AI Factory" is commendable.

Erdoes, President of J.P. Morgan's Asset and Wealth Management Division, stated that every new employee will receive AI training.

Google is investing 1 billion euros in its data center in Finland to promote the development of artificial intelligence.

Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel stated that they are increasing investment and introducing artificial intelligence and machine learning into SnapChat to make users more interested.

TSMC stated that since 2019, the daily wafer capacity of its EUV system has doubled; there are also reports that the company may use nuclear power to alleviate electricity pressure in the chip manufacturing process.

Kimi launches a paid plan? The Dark Side of the Moon: Small-scale grayscale testing, providing more choices during peak service periods.

Cryptocurrency

In early Asian trading, Bitcoin rose by $400 in the short term, reaching as high as $70,474.4.

Ethereum surged nearly 17%, marking the largest increase in 18 months, reaching $3,589. Market speculations suggest that a spot ETF may be approved.

Sources revealed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requested a potential issuer of a spot Ethereum ETF on Monday to expedite the update of its 19b-4 filing. The issuer of the ETF needs to obtain SEC-approved documents and an S-1 registration statement before the product is officially launched.

Eric Balchunas: Raises the probability of SEC approving a spot Ethereum ETF to 75%.

Startups

Elon Musk: SpaceX's customer base has exceeded 3 million in 99 countries.

Macro: Taking You Around the World

Fed's Mester: Expectations of three rate cuts this year are no longer appropriate. Interest rate hikes may occur if necessary, but this is not the baseline scenario. There are reasons to believe that the neutral interest rate is rising Fed's Jefferson: It is too early to judge whether the slowdown in inflation will continue.

Fed's Daly: Currently, there is no evidence to raise interest rates, and there is no confidence in the sustainable decline in inflation.

Fed's Bostic: Stable interest rates after the rate cut cycle may be higher than in the past decade.

Morgan Stanley strategist Mike Wilson, after initially failing in his 2024 forecast, has now turned optimistic about the U.S. stock market, expecting the S&P 500 index to rise to 5400 points by the second quarter of 2025, compared to his previous prediction of a drop to 4500 points by the end of this year. The new forecast is up about 2% from the closing level of 5,303.27 points last Friday.

Deutsche Bank believes that with strong profit growth driving price-earnings ratios, there is more upside for the S&P 500 index this year, raising its year-end target from 5,100 points to 5,500 points, implying a further increase of 3.7%.

A Chinese central bank official quoted experts as saying that the focus of future macro policies should shift from increasing supply to enhancing consumer demand and promoting supply-demand balance.

Iran's President Raeisi and Foreign Minister Abdolnaser Hemmati have confirmed their deaths in a helicopter crash. According to the constitution, the vice president will assume the presidency, and Iran will hold elections for a new president within 50 days