On Friday, November 15, local time, the three major U.S. stock indices closed down collectively. As of the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7%, the S&P 500 fell 1.32%, and the Nasdaq fell more than 400 points, a drop of 2.24%. This week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.24%, the S&P 500 fell 2.08%, and the Nasdaq fell 3.15%. Among them, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both recorded their largest weekly declines since early September, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded its largest weekly decline since late October.
Specifically, most of the "Seven Sisters of Technology" fell. The Wind US Technology Seven Giants Index fell 2.46%, Amazon fell more than 4%, Facebook (Meta) fell 4%, Nvidia fell more than 3%, Microsoft fell more than 2%, Google and Apple fell more than 1%; Tesla rose more than 3%.
Chip stocks performed weakly. Semiconductor equipment giant Applied Materials fell more than 9%. The company expects first-quarter revenue to be between $6.75 billion and $7.55 billion, with the midpoint of the range lower than analysts' expectations of $7.22 billion, indicating weak demand for chip manufacturing equipment. ASML and Microchip Technology fell more than 4%, Broadcom fell more than 3%, and AMD, Qualcomm, and Intel fell more than 2%.
Most Chinese concept stocks rose. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.82%. In terms of popular Chinese concept stocks, Kingsoft Cloud rose more than 8%, JD.com rose nearly 5%, Miniso and Li Auto rose more than 2%, and NIO and New Oriental rose more than 1%. Alibaba and iQiyi fell more than 2%, and Bilibili and Zhihu fell more than 1%.
On the news front, with the release of the US October retail sales data and Powell's statement, traders lowered their expectations for the probability of a Fed rate cut in December to around 50%.
In terms of data, the US October retail sales data, known as the "horror data" released that night, rose 0.4% month-on-month, in line with expectations of a 0.3% increase, and the previous value was revised from 0.4% to 0.8%. US core retail sales in October rose 0.1% month-on-month, in line with expectations of a 0.3% increase, and the previous value was revised from 0.5% to 1.0%. Scott Helfstein, head of investment strategy at Global X, believes that this data may be more valuable for the Federal Reserve and investors than the CPI released on Wednesday.
The report showed a sharp upward revision to last month's data, and came as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell had previously commented that the Fed was in no hurry to cut interest rates. This move caused traders to lower their expectations for rate cuts, dampening investor optimism and putting pressure on stocks.
Market expectations for the Fed to cut interest rates again at its December policy meeting have been reduced. CME's "FedWatch" tool shows that the market expects the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut in December to be reduced to around 60%, down from 82.5% before Powell's speech on Thursday. The probability of keeping interest rates unchanged has risen to nearly 40%, about 20 percentage points higher than the previous day.
Boston Fed President Collins said that the possibility of the Fed easing policy in December is not ruled out. The economy is in good shape, and a moderately loose policy may be appropriate at the right time. She also added that there are no signs of new price pressures, but tariffs may become a factor driving inflation in the future.
On November 15, at the end of New York trading, the main contract of CME Bitcoin futures BTC was quoted at $92,260.00, up 4.78% from the end of New York trading on Thursday, and up 19.26% this week. On November 14, it rose to $94,065.00. In the past seven natural days, spot Bitcoin has risen by about 19.28% in total, temporarily reported at $91,287.38, and on November 14 it also rose to $93,462.17, a record high. The main contract of CME Ethereum futures DCR was quoted at $3,110.00, down 0.61% from Thursday, and up 4.86% this week. On November 12, it reached $3,483.50.
Data from CompaniesMarketCap, a global mainstream asset market value ranking website, shows that among the top ten global assets, gold ranks first with a market value of 17.20 trillion US dollars; the total market value of Bitcoin is 1.75 trillion US dollars (approximately 12.67 trillion yuan), surpassing silver to become the world's eighth largest asset.
According to data from Coinglass, a crypto derivatives data analysis platform, nearly 200,000 Bitcoin positions have been liquidated every day since November, with the total amount of liquidations reaching approximately US$500 million.
It is worth noting that Bitcoin was born in 2008 and began to be known and traded by investors in early 2009. From a few cents per coin at the beginning to tens of thousands of dollars today, the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed like a rocket, leaving investors dumbfounded.
A staff member of a cryptocurrency trading company said that as a highly volatile asset, the price of Bitcoin is affected by many factors, including global economic conditions, policy changes, market demand, etc. Therefore, overseas investors should be cautious when investing in Bitcoin, be sensitive to market dynamics, and do a good job of risk management.
