Mid-year inventory | The “report card” of the world's major assets has been released! The NASDAQ rose nearly 18% during the year and remained strong, and gold, silver, and copper exploded collectively

In the first half of 2024, the world situation surged, hot events continued to rise, and investors also witnessed one “historic event” after another. Among the major asset classes, US stocks, supported by the “AI concept” and the “Big Seven,” have continued to be strong since last year, and have repeatedly reached new highs; while market hot spots continue to rotate, from Japanese stocks, gold, and copper to silver, to Hong Kong stocks, the target of investors' “hearts” is constantly changing.

In these six months of ups and downs, which asset classes have dominated the world? What other market targets are underperforming? Let's have a sneak peek.

The Nasdaq Composite Index, which is dominated by technology companies, remained strong in the first half of 2024, with an increase of nearly 18% from the beginning of the year; US stock giants including Nvidia, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have repeatedly reached new highs, and various companies in the AI industry chain have blossomed more, driving the overall rise in US stocks.

Regarding the subsequent trend, the bulls believe that the current financial environment in the US is relatively relaxed, corporate profit margins are expanding, and that US stocks are expected to continue to be supported; while the bears mainly emphasize that the continued high interest rate environment may trigger a hard landing in the economy from an interest rate perspective, and believe that the market has overlooked many risks, such as the risk of the US domestic political situation, the risk of geopolitical factors, and excessive market concentration on a few stocks such as Nvidia.

Overall, the Hong Kong stock market showed a volatile upward trend in the first half of the year. There was a rapid rise in May, followed by a correction. Since the beginning of the year, the Hang Seng Index has accumulated a cumulative increase of 5.76%, and the Hang Seng Technology Index has decreased by a cumulative total of 1.67%.

The reasons for the surge in the early period include central bank debt purchases, further easing of local real estate policies, and policy reasons such as exceeding market expectations, such as statements on finance, currency, and real estate at the April Politburo meeting, and financial reasons such as foreign investment, return of transactional capital, and short selling; the subsequent correction, in addition to the return of profits after overspending in the previous period, is also related to the fact that mainland fundamentals are still weak and private credit contraction continues. As the market entered the overbought range, it was no surprise that investors' differences widened and settled profitably. The Hang Seng Index can get some support around 18,000 points.

As “stock god” Buffett continues to be optimistic about Japanese stocks, the “Japanese Special Valuation” heatwave has taken the world by storm. Amid the frenzied influx of foreign capital, the Japanese stock market, which had been dormant for more than 30 years, finally ushered in a bright moment. The Nikkei 225 Index successfully surpassed 40,000 points in the first half of the year, drawing global attention. Despite the current decline, it still recorded an increase of 15.34% during the year. However, as the Bank of Japan steps out of the negative interest rate era, the central bank's move to stop buying Japanese stock ETFs may cause fluctuations in Japanese stocks in the short term.

Overall, the performance of the Japanese stock market at the end of this year mainly depends on whether Japan can actually break out of deflation and take a more solid step towards steadily achieving the 2% inflation target. This not only requires the government to continuously adjust relevant policies and regulations, but also requires the public to release large amounts of accumulated savings into daily consumption and investment.

Under the shadow of geopolitical uncertainty, high inflation, and large-scale debt issuance, the light of gold, a safe-haven asset, shines more and more. COMEX gold futures performed well in the first half of the year. Overall, they have been operating at a high level, rising 12.69% since the beginning of the year; due to the correlation between the two precious metals, silver has also begun to catch up with the upward pace of gold. Currently, COMEX silver futures have surpassed that of gold, with a cumulative increase of 22.81% from the beginning of the year. Furthermore, due to the sharp increase in demand for renewable electricity brought about by the AI boom, copper, a key metal in the manufacture of electrical equipment, ushered in a bull market; in addition to the decline in production in Chile, the world's largest copper supplier, copper prices continued to soar, rising 13.85% from the beginning of the year to date.