To The Moon

* U.S. markets fall on stagflation worries; China gains as investors return

🇺🇸 S&P 500: -0.46% 📉

🇺🇸 Nasdaq: -0.64% 📉

🇪🇺 Stoxx 600 Index: -0.64% 📉

🇯🇵 Nikkei 225 Index: -2.16% 📉

🇭🇰 Hang Seng Index: 0.48% 📈

🇨🇳 CSI 300 Index: 0.25% 📈

* U.S. stocks were broadly lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite down -0.5% and -0.6%, respectively, as markets were spooked by data on weaker-than-expected U.S. economic growth and persistent inflation.

* The U.S. economy grew at its slowest pace in nearly two years (1.6% year-on-year growth compared with expectations for 2.5% year-on-year growth), imports surged to meet strong consumer spending but widened the trade deficit, and hot PCE data also showed that the Fed is not A rate cut is likely before September.

* Jobless claims fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 207,000 in the week ended April 20, missing estimates of 214,000.

* Asia-Pacific stocks broadly ended higher, with the CSI 300 and Hang Seng Composite rising 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively, on optimism that interest in Chinese assets is returning after Beijing pledged to support the market and showed signs of a recovery in earnings.

💡 Future events: 💡

* At the end of the week, Japan's Tokyo core consumer price index annual rate, Bank of Japan policy rate and U.S. core personal consumption expenditures price index monthly rate, University of Michigan consumer confidence index revised version will be released

💡 Things you need to know today: 💡

1. First Citizens BancShares beat first-quarter profit expectations, helped by higher interest income and the positive impact of last year's acquisition of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

First Citizens Bank

2. A consortium of Chinese chip companies, led by Huawei Technologies and backed by the Chinese government, plans to produce high-bandwidth memory (HBM) semiconductors by 2026.

High bandwidth memory

3. Amazon's $Amazon.com(AMZN)$   cloud computing unit announced plans to invest $11 billion in data centers in Indiana, which would be the largest capital investment in the state.

4. Microsoft $Microsoft(MSFT)$   beat Wall Street expectations for third-quarter revenue and profit on Thursday, helped by increased adoption of artificial intelligence in its cloud services. Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry. Microsoft has also unleashed a torrent of new AI features and services for its enterprise and productivity apps and consumer platforms ever since it first debuted its revamped version of Bing and its AI chatbot in February 2023. This will further simulate the company stock price.

Microsoft

5. Alphabet beat sales, profit and advertising revenue estimates for the quarter while announcing its first-ever dividend and $70 billion in stock buybacks on Thursday.In artificial intelligence, Google has widely been seen as playing catch up to Microsoft (MSFT), which was among the first in the tech world to reap the cultural excitement around consumer AI chatbots. Microsoft invested in OpenAI, the company behind the popular ChatGPT. For such, I remain positive for $Alphabet(GOOGL)$  growth this year.

Alphabet

✅ KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Slowing U.S. GDP growth and accelerating inflation have stoked fears of stagflation and heightened expectations that the Federal Reserve will not cut interest rates before September.

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