According to the Futu Securities mobile app, all three major US indices rose on Monday, with the DJIA rising for the fifth consecutive day and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq recording eight consecutive gains. The market this week will focus on the minutes of the US Federal Reserve meeting and Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Global Central Bank Annual Meeting on Friday.

At the close, the Dow rose 236.77 points, up 0.58%, to 40,896.53; the Nasdaq rose 245.05 points, up 1.39%, to 17,876.77; the S&P 500 rose 54.00 points, up 0.97%, to 5,608.25. Tesla (TSLA.US) rose 3%, Nvidia (NVDA.US) rose 4.3%, and Google (GOOG.US) rose 2%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 1.38%, with Alibaba (BABA.US) up nearly 1%.

The German DAX30 index fell 9.70 points, or 0.05%, to 18,319.15 points; the UK FTSE 100 fell 14.66 points, or 0.18%, to 8,296.75 points; the French CAC40 index rose 5.30 points, or 0.07%, to 7,455.00 points; the European S&P 50 index rose 2.10 points, or 0.04%, to 4,842.65 points; the Italian FTSE MIB index rose 85.19 points, or 0.26%, to 33,126.00 points; the Spanish IBEX35 index rose 33.40 points, or 0.31%, to 10,983.1 points.

The Nikkei 225 index fell 1.77%, the Indonesia Jakarta Composite Index rose 0.47%, and the Vietnam VN30 Index rose 0.57%.

COMEX gold futures rose 0.19% to $2,542.60 per ounce; COMEX silver futures rose 2.24% to $29.495 per ounce.

Bitcoin rose more than 1% to $59,035.5 per coin; Ethereum rose 0.3% to $2,620.5 per coin.

NYMEX crude oil futures for September delivery fell $2.28, or 3%, to close at $74.37 a barrel, while ICE Brent oil futures for October delivery fell $2, or 2.5%, to close at $77.68 a barrel.

London metals rose, with LME copper up 1.49%, LME zinc up about 0.87%, LME tin up more than 2.10%, and LME aluminum up about 3.38%.

Macro news

The Conference Board: US economic growth faces resistance. Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Director of Business Cycle Indicators at The Conference Board, said that leading indicators continued to decline on a month-to-month basis, but the six-month year-on-year growth rate no longer suggests a recession in the future. The non-financial sector was generally weak in July. The rapid deterioration of new orders, continued pessimism about business conditions among consumers, and the slowdown in building permits and manufacturing hours all contributed to the decline. These data continue to indicate that future economic growth will face resistance. The Conference Board expects real US GDP growth to slow over the next few quarters as consumers and businesses continue to cut spending and investment. It is expected that real US GDP annualized growth will be 0.6% in the third quarter of 2024 and 1% in the fourth quarter.

Fed's Kashkari: Soft labor market should open the door to rate cuts in September. Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari said he was open to a rate cut at the next meeting because the probability of a labor market that is too weak is increasing. Kashkari said in an interview, "The risk balance has changed, so it is appropriate to discuss a possible rate cut in September." Kashkari said in June that there may not be any need to cut rates before the end of this year. But the rise in the unemployment rate from 3.7% at the beginning of the year to 4.3% in July suggests greater risks of economic slowdown. Kashkari said he wouldn't even discuss whether to cut rates now if there was no evidence of a weak labor market and the unemployment rate was still within the range of 3.7% to 3.8%. On the contrary, the situation has changed because inflation is making progress and there are some worrying signs in the labor market. Nevertheless, Kashkari said there was no reason to cut rates more than 25 basis points because layoffs remain low and there is no clear deterioration in the number of people applying for unemployment benefits.

Survey shows: the expectation of unemployment in the US has reached a new high. According to the survey of New York Federal Reserve's expectation of consumers, the proportion of people who think they may become unemployed in the next four months has reached a historic high since the 2014 survey. However, at the same time, more and more consumers expect to have job opportunities in the next few months compared to a year ago. Overall, the survey by the New York Federal Reserve shows that the labor market is becoming more turbulent, and workers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their wages and benefits, and insisting on higher wage expectations. Since the July job report showed an increase in the unemployment rate, economists and policymakers have remained highly vigilant about any signs of employment market deterioration faster than expected. The survey found that 4.4% of respondents expect to be unemployed in the next four months, the highest level ever recorded.

US auto association: domestic summer travel hits a record high, lower gasoline prices boost sentiment. According to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), domestic travel bookings for the upcoming US Labor Day weekend are expected to increase by 9% year-on-year. Although this estimate covers only travel booked through AAA, the data further portrays the optimistic outlook for US summer fuel demand. During the Independence Day holiday week of July 4th, the number of domestic travelers in the United States was expected to reach a record high, and the number of domestic travelers during the Memorial Day weekend before that was expected to reach the highest level in 20 years. Supported by lower gasoline prices, US travel growth remains resilient this year. AAA said retail gasoline prices are expected to be $3.50 per gallon during the Labor Day weekend, compared with $3.81 per gallon last year.

Historic moment! The gold bar price reaches 1 million US dollars. Last Friday, the spot gold price surpassed $2,500 per ounce, continuing to hit a new historical high. Gold bars usually weigh about 400 ounces, which means that the price of each gold bar has reached a milestone of over 1 million US dollars. Of course, there are slight differences in the data. According to the London Bullion Market Association, in London, the global precious metal trading center, gold bars usually weigh about 400 troy ounces, but the pure gold content can also be between 350 and 430 ounces. In addition, there are smaller and lower-priced gold bars available for individual purchase, such as those sold by Costco.

Goldman Sachs strategist: the US stock market will rise in the next four weeks. Scott Rubner, the global head of market directors and strategy experts at Goldman Sachs, said that driven by positive technology stock trends and corporate buybacks, the US stock market is expected to rebound in the next four weeks. Rubner wrote in the report: "Downturn thresholds will remain high during Labor Day." Based on the total exposure of rule-based systematic funds, which rose from USD 450 billion in July to the current USD 250 billion, trend-following funds have begun to re-leverage. Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) are expected to show strong buying demand in the next week. No matter how the market changes, commodity trading advisors are likely to buy stocks. Corporate demand will also be a boost. But he warned that the stock market may experience negative trends after September 16, because the second half of September is historically the worst two weeks of the year. Rubner expects the S&P 500 index to reach 6,000 points in November and December.

[Individual stock news]

AMD (AMD.US) spent $4.9 billion to acquire AI server industry leader ZT Systems. Advanced Micro Devices agreed to acquire server manufacturer ZT Systems for $4.9 billion in cash and stock. According to a statement on Monday, ZT Systems, headquartered in New Jersey, USA, will become part of the AMD Data Center Solutions business group. AMD will retain the design and customer teams of the business and seek to sell the manufacturing department. The transaction price includes a payment of $0.4 billion based on certain milestones. AMD expects the transaction to add value on a non-GAAP revenue basis by the end of 2025. AMD emphasized that ZT Systems' rich experience in designing and optimizing cloud computing solutions, this acquisition will also help cloud and enterprise customers significantly accelerate large-scale deployment of AI infrastructure with AMD-supported leading AI training and inference solutions based on cross-chip, software, and system innovations.

Amazon (AMZN.US) spends $80 million on the acquisition of Xperi (XPER.US) subsidiary Perceive for AI models. Amazon has announced the acquisition of chipmaker and AI model compression company Perceive in a deal worth $80 million in cash. Perceive is a subsidiary of Xperi based in San Jose, California, focusing on providing edge inference solutions for large AI models for edge devices. Xperi holds approximately 76% of Perceive's shares. The transaction was signed last Wednesday and is expected to be completed within 90 days, but may be extended to six months if regulatory conditions require. Xperi disclosed details of the deal in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday, including an asset purchase agreement that included restrictive covenants for Xperi and Perceive for three years after the transaction is completed. Perceive's technology is focused on running large AI models on edge devices, which are typically located at the network edge and have limited power, processing capabilities, connectivity, and storage space. Although Amazon has not disclosed its specific plans for the technology, a company spokesman said, "We're delighted to have signed an agreement to acquire Perceive and welcome its talented team to join us in driving big language models and multimodal experiences on edge devices."

Bank review:

Cantor Fitzgerald: Maintains Tesla's (TSLA.US) target price at $245.