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The New York stock market was mixed as excitement about Nvidia calmed down somewhat.
The Dow and S&P 500 indices again broke record highs following the previous day.
On the 23rd (US Eastern time) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended trading at 39,131.53, up 62.42 points (0.16%) from the previous day.
The Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index closed at 5,088.80, up 1.77 points (0.03%) from the previous day, and the Nasdaq index closed at 15,996.82, down 44.80 points (0.28%) from the previous day.
The Dow and S&P 500 indices closed at record highs on this day, continuing the previous day. The S&P 500 index broke its all-time high for the 13th time this year.
The Nasdaq index broke an all-time high during the day, but did not exceed the closing price of 16,057.44 recorded on November 19, 2021.
The day before, Nvidia's stock price rose sharply due to strong performance, and investment sentiment in the overall market, especially technology stocks, improved.
Nvidia closed up about 0.4% today after rising more than 16% the previous day.
NVIDIA's market capitalization exceeded $2 trillion during the day for the first time in history, but only reached $1.97 trillion at the closing price. Thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) craze, NVIDIA quickly grew into a company with the largest market capitalization in the United States after Microsoft and Apple. It took only 8 months for the market capitalization to double from exceeding $1 trillion to exceeding $2 trillion.
Other companies are continuing to announce their performance.
Media company Warner Bros. Discovery's stock price fell about 10% on the news that its losses were larger than expected.
Square parent company Block's stock rose more than 16% after posting surprise quarterly profit and gross profit guidance exceeding expectations.
Cabana's stock price rose more than 32% on the news that quarterly losses were significantly reduced and the company achieved its first annual net profit.
Expectations for an early interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve System (Fed) are gradually weakening as Fed officials make more cautious comments. The market expects the Fed's first interest rate cut to be in June, and the probability of an interest rate cut is 68%, down from over 80% a month ago.
In her post-close speech yesterday, Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook said that while current monetary policy was restrictive, she hoped to have greater confidence that inflation was heading toward 2% before cutting interest rates.
Federal Reserve Director Christopher Waller also said late the day before that the strong indicators "suggest that there is no need to rush to start cutting interest rates to normalize monetary policy."
Given that Director Waller has shown a relatively hawkish stance within the Federal Reserve, his remarks suggest that the cautious stance within the Federal Reserve is also shared by hawks.
“I think it would be appropriate for the Fed to roll back restrictive policies at some point this year,” New York Fed President John Williams said in an interview today.
This is in the same context as the remarks made by Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Philip Jefferson the day before regarding an interest rate cut within the year.
Governor Williams said the January figure may be an unusual figure and said, “Inflation continues to fall and shows a trend of decline.”
Goldman Sachs predicted that the Federal Reserve's first interest rate cut will occur in June and that there will be only four cuts in total this year. This is a revised forecast that the rate cuts would begin in May and be cut five times this year.
In the S&P 500 index, stocks related to energy, consumer discretionary, and technology fell, while stocks related to utilities, materials, industry, health, and finance rose.
Among individual stocks, the stock price of Intuitive Machines, a private company that succeeded in landing the U.S. private unmanned lunar exploration vehicle 'Odysseus' on the moon, rose more than 15% on the news of Odysseus' lunar landing.
Rivian's stock price fell more than 12% after the earnings announcement due to a series of selling reports from analysts.
JP Morgan's stock price rose 0.5% as CEO Jamie Dimon announced that he sold 800,000 shares of the company's stock the day before.
New York stock market experts said that the growing possibility of a soft economic landing and that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates would support stock prices.
On this day, UBS revised its year-end S&P 500 index forecast by 200 points to 5,200, saying, "Despite recent mixed economic indicators, stocks will still be supported thanks to solid economic growth, easing inflation, the Federal Reserve turning to lower interest rates, and a surge in AI investment." It was predicted that UBS also expected the first interest rate cut in June of this year and predicted a total of three cuts within the year.
So far, "the economy isn't really slowing down that much," Russell Price, chief economist at Ameriprise Financial, told MarketWatch. "I think the economy overall is fine. That's good for corporate profits."
According to FedWatch of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the probability that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in June at the close of the Federal Funds (FF) interest rate futures market reached 67.4%. This is similar to the previous day.
The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) volatility index (VIX) recorded 13.75, down 0.79 points (5.43%) from the previous day.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency leader Bitcoin (BTC) fell by about 1% over the past 24 hours, retreating to the $50,000 level.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, a global cryptocurrency price platform, Bitcoin (BTC), the No. 1 cryptocurrency in market capitalization, is trading at $50,831 as of 8:38 a.m. on February 24, Korean time. This is a price drop of 0.97% from 24 hours ago and 2.55% from a week ago.
The reason why Bitcoin has been showing weakness recently is because the purchasing power of the BTC spot exchange traded fund (ETF) has weakened.
In relation to this, Cointelegraph, a cryptocurrency media outlet, cited BitMEX research data and said, "While the inflow of assets into Bitcoin spot ETFs has temporarily stagnated, the BTC price is also unable to continue its upward trend."
Negative investment opinions based on the U.S. Federal Reserve's (Fed) prudent view of a base interest rate cut are also holding back the rise in Bitcoin prices.
According to the minutes of the Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting held on the 30th and 31st of last month, released by the Federal Reserve on the 21st (local time), most attendees pointed out the risks of easing the tight monetary policy stance too quickly and opined that a hasty interest rate cut is not appropriate. presented.
