Global Financial – Week 5-6

The past two weeks have been very rough with all indexes except Shanghai, which ended the time period in green. The dip has been largely down to a few factors, the first being the global tensions in the Middle East and other regions, which were the main reason for gold’s 2.95% increase over the period. The second factor is a change in mentality when it comes to interest rate cuts, with many analysts now leaning towards only one or two cuts this year. Finally, the market is also, in part, rebalancing itself after a major bullish period that saw the S&P increase 27% from October 30^th, 2023, to April 1^st, 2024. The next two weeks will see some of the American index’s biggest companies release their earnings, including Nvidia, which has been on a downward trajectory after reports from ASML and TSC, which are both down 18.50% and 19% from their all-time highs.

Index performance

FTSE 100: -0.19%

FTSE 250: -1.67%

CAC 40: -0.34%

DAX: -2.33%

SSE: 0.62%

Hang Seng: -2.56%

Nikkei: -5.75%

ASX 200: -2.69%

Dow Jones: -2.30%

NASDAQ: -5.84%

S&P 500: -4.51%

Events

The bitcoin halving event is set to take place approximately on April 20, with the event reducing the rewards of miners from 6.25 to 3.125, which halves the rate at which new bitcoin is created. This event could change the outcome of Bitcoin’s future investors and strategies moving forward.

Netflix has announced it will no longer report subscriber numbers, which follows Apple and Amazon in this situation.

LVMH as well as other luxury goods brands have been struggling to find revenue growth as people cut their spending back.

Tesla continues to fall even after the announcement from Elon Musk that the company will cut 10% of its workforce.

Goldman Sachs announced a 28% increase in first-quarter profits.

Alpine Immune Sciences surged as Vertex Pharmaceuticals announced plans to acquire the company for $4.9 billion in an all-cash deal.

Intel announces a new chip called the “Gaudi 3 AI chip” in an effort to challenge Nvidia in the space with 1.5 times the performance.

Upcoming Events

22^nd April: PBoC Interest Rate Decesion

25^th April: Gross Domestic Product Growth for South Korea and the United States

1^st May: Fed Interest Rate Decision

Dividend payments for Major companies

24^th April: Comcast ($0.31)

25^th April: HSBC ($0.31)

26^th April: JD ($0.76)

30^th April: Loreal (€6.60), JPMorgan Chase ($1.15), EOG Resources ($0.91), and Altria Group ($0.98)

1^st May: AT&T ($0.28), Verizon ($0.66), and Bristol-Myers Squibb ($0.60)

3^rd May: Ferrari (€2.44), ING Groep (€0.76), UBS Group ($0.70), and Pentair ($0.23)

Earnings of major companies

22^nd April: Verizon

23^rd April: Visa, Tesla, Pepsi, Philip Morris International, NextEra Energy, Lockheed Martin, and Pentair.

24^th April: Meta, AT&T, General Dynamics, Ford, Lloyd’s, Nordic Semiconductor, and M/I Home

25^th April: Microsoft, Google, AstraZeneca, Comcast, Intel, S&P Global, Airbus, Sanofi, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Altria Group, Newmont Mining Crop, Barclays, Snapchat, Cincinnati Finance, TransUnion, and Sainsbury’s.

26^th April: Exxon-Mobil, and Chevron

27^th April: ICICI Bank

30^th April: Amazon, Coca-Cola, AMD, HSBC, Mercedes Benz, Paypal, Volkswagen, MPLX, Adidas

1^st May: Mastercard, Pfizer, Glaxo SmithKline, The Kraft Heinz, Barrick Gold, Brookfield Infrastructure

2^nd May: Apple, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Amgen, EOG Resources, Coinbase, ING Groep, Federal Reality Investment, and Fox Factory Holding.

3^rd May: Hershey

P.S.: Do not take this as financial advice; make your own decisions and do further research before investing in the markets, as your capital is at risk.