What Moved The Markets This Week 📈
U.S. GDP Growth Slows Significantly, TikTok Bill Officially Signed Into Law, Snowflake Unveils Its Arctic LLM, Meta Opens Quest OS To Third Party Devs, and MSFT + GOOG + TSLA Earnings
Sunday Morning Markets
Trading Week 17, covering Monday, Apr 22 through Friday, Apr 26. Your weekly financial markets update, in less than 5 minutes.
The Week In Review ⏪
US Markets 🇺🇸
GDP growth slows to 1.2% in the first quarter
Inflation accelerates to 2.8% in March (PCE)
TikTok bill officially passed, Bytedance on the clock
Earnings from Microsoft, Alphabet, Tesla
Global Markets 🌏
Bank of Japan holds rates steady, Yen falls
Bytedance claims they won’t sell TikTok
China pays citizens to buy new cars
Tech ⚡
Meta opens Quest OS now available to third parties
Tesla says new EV models coming H1’25, unveils robotaxi app
Snowflake releases its own enterprise LLM called ‘Arctic’
Apple’s Vision Pro headset sales are worse than expected
US Markets 🇺🇸
Q1 economic growth fell far short of forecasts as GDP slowed to a 1.6% annualized pace, below the 2.4% estimate. At the same time, inflation accelerated significantly during the quarter to 3.4%.
Key Fed inflation gauge comes in hotter than expected with the Core PCE index rising 2.8% during the year (estimate 2.7%). Including food and energy categories, Headline PCE accelerated to 2.7% (estimate 2.6%).
Biden signs ‘TikTok ban’ bill into law that gives its parent company, ByteDance, 9 months to sell the social media platform to a US-approved buyer or else the platform will be banned in the country altogether.
Business activity slowed to a four-month low in April as the S&P Composite PMI slid to 50.9. The manufacturing portion of the index slid into contractionary territory for the first time since last year.
FTC votes to ban noncompete agreements that prevent employees from working for competitors. The FTC estimates that 30 million American workers, or roughly 18%, are currently subject to a noncompete.
IBM to acquire HashiCorp in $6.4 billion deal that is expected to close by the end of 2024. The all-cash deal represents an acquisition price of $35 per share of HCP 0.00%↑, a 45% premium on Monday’s opening price.
Express files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with plans to close over 100 stores as WHP Global looks to acquire most of its assets. As of March 2nd, the retailer had $1.3 billion in assets and $1.2 billion in debts.
Trump to receive a bonus worth $1.2 billion in new DJT shares after hitting a stock price performance benchmark. He will earn 36 million additional shares, raising his total position in Truth to over $4.5 billion.
Global Markets 🌏
Bank of Japan holds interest rates steady after hiking last month for the first time in 17 years. Markets expect the BOJ to hike rates again in the coming months as the Yen has plunged 20% against the dollar in the last year.
The UK’s economic recovery gains pace in April as the S&P composite PMI hits an 11-month high of 54.0%. The pound rallied following the report as markets reduced wagers on expected rate cuts this year.
China acquires recently-banned Nvidia A.I. chips through server products made by Super Micro, Dell, and Taiwan’s Gigabyte Tech. Among the buyers were the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shandong A.I. Institute.
ByteDance says they will not sell TikTok, publicly refuting the Information’s report that ByteDance was having ongoing discussions about selling the social media platform without its video recommendation algorithm.
China to pay consumers up to $1,400 to replace old cars, a move to boost slowing demand in the world’s largest EV market. Passenger car sales in China dropped an estimated 1.5% this month.
Honda to build $11 billion EV hub in Canada to create a “comprehensive EV value chain,” including new assembly and battery plants. The hub will be operational by 2028 with an annual capacity of 240,000 vehicles.
China approves Pony.ai to go public in the U.S., a sign that Beijing may be loosening its grip. The self-driving startup currently offers robotaxi services in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
Tech ⚡
Snowflake unveils its own flagship AI model named Arctic LLM. The cloud computing giant claims its “mixture of experts” architecture optimizes the model to perform a wide range of enterprise use cases.
Apple Vision Pro headset sales are tanking according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. According to his report, Apple was planning to produce 800,000 units in 2024 but has now cut that to 400,000 to 450,000.
Tesla to produce new affordable EV by early 2025, earlier than previously expected. Tesla also revealed a first look at its Robotaxi ride-hailing app as it scales up its AI infrastructure for Full Self-Driving cars.
The RayBan Meta smart glasses now have multimodal AI which allows users to ask questions about their surroundings and get helpful information in real time without having to pull out their phone.
Meta opens its virtual reality OS to third-party device makers and has partnerships in place with Lenovo, Microsoft, and Asus, to build new headsets using the company’s Meta Horizon operating system.
Walmart-backed fintech ‘One’ introduces BNPL loans for big-ticket items at some of the retailer’s more than 4,600 U.S. stores. The move puts One in direct competition with Affirm, Walmart’s BNPL provider since 2019.
Amazon launches a new grocery delivery subscription in 3,500 cities across the US. The subscription costs $9.99 per month for Amazon Prime users and offers unlimited free deliveries for grocery orders over $35.
Klarna scores major payment deal with Uber ahead of its highly anticipated IPO. Klarna’s ‘Pay Now’ button will be added as a payment option for both Uber and Uber Eats in the U.S., Germany, and Sweden.
Earnings Reports 💰
See other breakdowns on our Twitter page.
Weekly Poll 🗳️
Chart Of The Week 📊
Week Ahead 📅
Monday
DE - CPI Inflation (APR)🇩🇪
CN - Manufacturing PMI (APR)🇨🇦
CN - Non-Manufacturing PMI (APR)🇨🇳
Earnings: SoFi, OnSemi, Dominoes, F5, Paramount💰
Tuesday
US - Chicago PMI (APR)🇺🇸
US - CB Consumer Confidence (APR)🇺🇸
CA - GDP (MAR)🇨🇦
DE - GDP (Q1)🇩🇪
EU - GDP (Q1)🇪🇺
EU - CPI Inflation (APR)🇪🇺
Earnings: Amazon, AMD, Starbucks, PayPal, Super Micro Computer, Eli Lilly, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Pinterest💰
Wednesday
US - FOMC Interest Rate 🇺🇸
US - ISM Manufacturing PMI (APR)🇺🇸
US - JOLTS Job Openings (MAR)🇺🇸
US - ADP Employment (APR)🇺🇸
Earnings: Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, CVS, Marriott, Carvana, Etsy, Fastly💰
Thursday
US - Trade Balance (MAR)🇺🇸
US - Jobless Claims (APR)🇺🇸
Earnings: Apple, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Block, Draftkings, Bill, Booking, Expedia, Fortinet, Novo Nordisk, Peloton💰
Friday
US - Nonfarm Payrolls (APR)🇺🇸
US - ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI (APR)🇺🇸
US - S&P Services PMI (APR)🇺🇸
Earnings: Fubo💰
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