The S&P 500 stabilizes before market this Wednesday, while the Dow Jones loses 0.1%. The Nasdaq is now up 0.2%. Nvidia’s GTC conference did not really boost the stock, which has been the locomotive of Wall Street in recent months. Operators are now turning their attention to the Fed’s monetary meeting, with the verdict expected this evening. On the Nymex, a barrel of WTI crude lost 1.7% to $81.3. An ounce of gold lost 0.3% to $2,153. The dollar index advances 0.5% against a basket of reference currencies.
This Wednesday, the Atlanta Fed’s inflation expectations index for March will be released at 3 p.m., while the US Department of Energy’s weekly report on domestic oil stocks for the week ended 15 March will be revealed at 3:30 p.m. The Fed’s monetary decision will be known at 7 p.m., with a very likely new status quo leaving rates unchanged on fed funds between 5.25 and 5.50%. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will hold his press conference at 7:30 p.m.
According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the probability of a status quo on Wednesday is 99%. It is still 91% on May 1 (next monetary meeting). There is also a 40% probability that the federal funds rate range will remain between 5.25% and 5.50% on June 12… Operators will therefore monitor the dot plot very carefully this evening. the Fed, which presents in dot chart form the rate forecasts of the twelve members of the Monetary Policy Committee.
In the news of companies listed on Wall Street, PDD, Micron, General Mills, Chewy, BioNTech and KB Home, reveal their accounts today.
Tomorrow, operators will follow the weekly US unemployment claims for the week ended March 16 (1:30 p.m.), the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index for March (1:30 p.m.), the current account balance for the fourth quarter (also 1:30 p.m. ), as well as the US composite flash PMI for March (2:45 p.m.), existing home resales for February (3 p.m.) and the Conference Board Leading Indicator Index (same time). Accenture, Nike, FedEx, Lululemon, Darden Restaurants and FactSet will also publish their quarterly accounts tomorrow, Thursday.
Finally, on Friday, investors will follow interventions by Jerome Powell, Philip Jefferson and Raphael Bostic of the Fed.
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Nvidia, which is holding its GTC conference this week, has announced various new products, including in particular its Blackwell GPU, the successor to the already highly coveted H100 and H200 GPUs. According to the group, it is the most powerful chip in the world. The H100 and H200 chips had already become the go-to GPUs for AI applications, sending Nvidia’s data center revenues soaring. Jensen Huang, the group’s chief executive, said Nvidia was well positioned to capture much of the expected massive new data center spending. Meta, the owner of Facebook, told Reuters that the group should receive initial deliveries of Nvidia’s new B200 AI chip later this year.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said, cited by Reuters, that the group expected to “come to market later this year” with its new GPUs, but that the volume of shipments would not increase significantly before 2025. Meta , one of Nvidia’s largest customers, which purchased hundreds of thousands of previous generation chips for content recommendation systems and generative AI products, is therefore still expected to stock up heavily on new GPUs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in January that the social media colossus planned to have around 350,000 of the previous chips, called H100, in its inventory by the end of the year. This week, Zuckerberg added that Meta plans to use Blackwell to train Meta’s Llama models. Meta would consider continuing to use the previous generation of products to train Llama 3 and would use Blackwell for future generations of the model, according to a Meta spokesperson cited by Reuters… Note that several brokers on the market, including Oppenheimer, have today raised their price targets on Nvidia beyond $1,000.
Tesla, which is due to announce its delivery figures for the first quarter of 2024 on April 2, recently decided on several price increases, after repeated reductions having eroded its margins. The Texan manufacturer of electric vehicles will increase the price of Model Y produced in China by 5,000 yuan, approximately 639 euros, from April 1, indicates Reuters, citing Elon Musk’s group. Tesla had already reported an expected increase of around 2,000 euros in the price of the Model Y in several European markets from Friday. The group also announced on Friday a $1,000 increase in the price of the Model Y in the United States, expected on April 1.
General Mills, the American food group, announced adjusted earnings per share of $1.17 for its third fiscal quarter, compared to 97 cents a year before and a market consensus of $1.05. The adjusted gross margin was 34%, close to market expectations and without much change year-on-year. Sales fell slightly to $5.1 billion in the period, but exceeded analysts’ forecasts. The group maintains its 2024 results forecasts at the end of the quarter.
Chipotle Mexican Grill announced that its board of directors has approved a 50-1 stock split, a change that will be proposed to shareholders on June 6. The stock has gained even more than 70% over 12 months and is now trading at around $2,797. The split would be the first in the history of Chipotle, an American Tex-Mex fast food chain founded around thirty years ago and listed on the stock market in January 2006 at a price of $22. The split, if approved, would take effect on June 26.
BioNTech, a German laboratory partner of Pfizer in Covid-19 vaccines, announced sharply declining financial results, while the group is now focusing on cancer drugs. Revenues were 1.48 billion euros for the fourth quarter and 3.82 billion euros for the closed financial year, compared to respectively 4.28 billion euros and 17.31 billion euros a year ago. Before. Quarterly net profit fell to 458 million euros, compared to 2.28 billion a year earlier, in the same period, while annual profit fell to 930 million euros, ten times lower than the previous year . BioNTech is now targeting a turnover for the year 2024 of between 2.5 and 3.1 billion euros, depending on the evolution of regulations and covid vaccination. It previously forecast a turnover of around 3 billion for 2024. The group anticipates its first launch in oncology in 2026 and ten indication approvals by 2030.
Intel climbs on Wall Street, while the White House agreed with the Commerce Department to grant the processor giant up to $8.5 billion in subsidies for its production based in the United States, as part of the Chips Act. Pat Gelsinger, boss of Intel, is therefore reaping the fruits of intense lobbying in recent years for Washington to grant billions to American chip manufacturers. It is the largest announcement of a subsidy to a beneficiary in the chip sector, said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The agreement therefore consolidates Intel’s positions, while President Joe Biden intends to revive semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Intel would use the funds for a series of new projects in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Oregon. The agreement announced today also includes government loans of up to 11 billion.
PDD, a Chinese online retailer listed on Wall Street, previously known as Pinduoduo, is booming on the American market. The group, which specializes in particular in the sale of food products at discount prices, also benefits from the popularity of its Temu application for sales at discount prices. PDD posted revenues of 88.9 billion yuan, approximately $12.5 billion, for the quarter ended at the end of December, an increase of… 123% compared to last year. Net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders for the quarter was 23.3 billion yuan ($3.28 billion), an increase of 146% (!), compared to 9.45 billion yuan for the comparable period, l previous year. The Temu app is gaining significant market share, including in the United States, despite competition from Shein or Amazon. For the year ended, PDD posted revenue of 247.6 billion yuan or $34.9 billion, an increase of 90%, for adjusted profit of $9.56 billion.
