On October 12th, according to Cailianshe (edited by Shi Zhengcheng), last night and this morning, with the strong start of the third quarter earnings season of US stocks this year, the three major indexes all closed higher. As the bull market is about to enter its second year, the S&P 500 index hit a new high for the 45th time this year, and for the first time in history, crossed the 5800-point mark.

As of the close on Friday, the S&P 500 index rose by 0.61% to 5815.03 points; the Nasdaq index rose by 0.33% to 18342.94 points; the Dow Jones Industrial Index rose by 0.97% to 42863.86 points, also hitting a new high.

(Weekly chart of the S&P 500 index, Source: TradingView)

In fact, looking back at the starting point of this bull market of the S&P 500 Index - October 13, 2022, it is not difficult to find that the U.S. stock market was actually in a quite turbulent state. Before that day, the index had been intermittently falling for almost 10 months, and the CPI released in September exceeded expectations, reaching 8.2%, triggering a new round of declines, directly leading to a violent 75 basis points rate hike by the Fed a month later.

However, fueled by the collective surge in financial stocks, the U.S. stock market witnessed a historically rare violent turnaround that day, with the S&P 500 Index plummeting 2% at the opening to 3491 points, then bouncing back over 4%, finally closing above 3600 points.

One day later, led by JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street's financial giants handed in a somewhat disappointing third-quarter report, and the new round of the US stock bull market set off unsteadily.

(The unveiling of the third-quarter report that year was not very positive, Source: New York Times report)

We now also know that the Fed raised another 150 basis points before ending the entire rate hike cycle. It took a year to start cutting rates, and there was almost a systemic banking crisis due to the rate hike speed. Meanwhile, the capital boom triggered by the launch of ChatGPT has not slowed down today, often causing concerns about the "concentration of gains being too high".

Coincidentally, Friday local time was also the opening day of the 2024 U.S. stock third quarter earnings season. Just as traders were worried that rate cuts would weaken bank profits, JPMorgan unexpectedly reported strong net interest income, while Wells Fargo's net interest margin income decreased, but the disclosed fourth-quarter decline was smaller than expected. The world's largest asset management company, Blackrock, announced that its assets under management had increased from $10.6 trillion to $11.5 trillion in just 3 months.

As a result, JPMorgan rose 4.44% on Friday, Wells Fargo rose 5.61%, driving the KBW bank stock index up 3.97% to a new high in nearly two and a half years. Blackrock rose 3.63%, setting a new all-time high for its stock price.

Driven by the overall market sentiment, overnight Chinese concept stocks continued to rise. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon Index rose strongly by nearly 1.5% from the opening on Friday, closing up 0.91%, marking the second consecutive day of gains in trading.

Popular stocks performance

US technology giants continued to fluctuate, with Apple falling by 0.65%, Microsoft rising by 0.12%, Amazon up by 1.16%, Meta up by 1.05%, Google-A up by 0.72%, Tesla, which just concluded its Robotaxi event, fell by 8.78%, Nvidia down by 0.01%, and Intel rising by 1.46%.

Chinese concept stocks continued their upward trend. By the close of trading, Alibaba rose by 0.79%, Tencent ADR rose by 0.98%, Pinduoduo up by 2.25%, JD.com up by 1.41%, NetEase up by 0.3%, Nio Inc up by 0.4%, Li Auto Inc up by 1.97%, XPeng up by 1.41%, JinkoSolar up by 4.21%, KE Holdings up by 4.04%, Futu Holdings Ltd up by 3.59%, and EHang up by 2.71%.

Other news

JPMorgan's conference call claimed that the US economy has achieved a soft landing.

During JPMorgan's Q3 earnings conference call held on Friday, Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum told analysts that consumers continue to spend, large enterprises are confident, which is exactly the economic state the Federal Reserve has been hoping to achieve. Barnum said: "These results are consistent with a soft landing, which is very congruent with this moderate economic situation."

Meanwhile, CEO Damon sitting beside him continued to emphasize risks, stating his ongoing concerns about macroeconomic issues and geopolitical risks, including the escalating conflicts in the Middle East and the record-high levels of debt in the US government.

Tesla plunged 8% after the conference, while Uber emerged as the winner.

The US 'AI and robot company' Tesla held a conference on Thursday evening, unveiling products like the self-driving taxi (Cybercab) and self-driving van (Robovan). However, due to the lack of technical details and a highly uncertain listing time (combined with Musk often delaying releases), the company's stock price fell by 8.78% on Friday. Meanwhile, the online car-hailing platform Uber rose by 10.81% and Lyft by 9.59%.

Boeing plans to lay off 10%, and the first delivery of the 777X model is postponed to 2026.

Facing prolonged strikes and increasingly severe cash flow shortages, Boeing announced plans to cut approximately 10% of its workforce to tackle the crisis. CEO Kelly Ortberg stated in a memo to employees that the layoffs will include executives, managers, and regular employees. As of the end of 2023, Boeing had a total of 1.71 million employees. Ortberg also announced that the delayed first delivery of the Boeing 777X model will be further postponed to 2026.

Eli Lilly's CEO stated that the weight loss drug is expected to be approved in Japan next year.

Eli Lilly and Co CEO David Ricks said on Friday that the weight loss drug Zepbound is expected to be approved in Japan by mid-next year. Previously, Japan had approved Eli Lilly's ta-erpopeptide injection with the same ingredients for the treatment of diabetes. Eli Lilly anticipates that after the weight loss drug is approved, they will continue to collaborate with Tanabe Mitsubishi Pharma for distribution in the Japanese market.