On Tuesday and Thursday this week, the US CPI and PPI for February will be released respectively. Investors are eagerly awaiting the last batch of inflation data before the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this month to see if the February figures show a rebound in inflation growth as in January. According to a recent report by Wall Street News, inflation data has become a crucial indicator for the recent direction of the US stock market, and key data may cast a shadow over the bull market. Market expectations are generally that the core CPI for February will continue to cool, with a YoY growth of 3.7% and a MoM increase of 0.3%. The overall CPI MoM growth is expected to accelerate from 0.2% to 0.4%, with a YoY growth rate of 3.1%, remaining flat compared to January.
Some analysts have commented that ahead of the release of this week's significant inflation data, traders have little motivation to boost US stocks. The main culprit for the decline in major US stock indexes last Friday was chip stocks, which continued to drag down the market. NVIDIA, which suffered its largest drop in nine months last Friday, further distanced itself from its historical highs. Chinese concept stocks followed the rise of A-shares, outperforming the broader market once again; Bilibili surged over 10% after being upgraded to neutral by JPMorgan Chase and receiving a slight target price increase, focusing on the revenue growth prospects from new games this year, while XPeng and NIO Inc. surged as high as A-share new energy vehicle companies.
<h2>Chip stocks underperformed the market for two consecutive days, NVIDIA fell nearly 4%, Tesla once surged over 4%, Chinese concept stocks outperformed the market for two days</h2>
The three major US stock indexes opened lower and maintained a downward trend in the morning session. When hitting a new daily low in the morning, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell by nearly 0.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by nearly 240 points, and the S&amp;P 500 Index all fell by over 0.6%. By midday, the declines in the Nasdaq and S&amp;P narrowed, while the Dow turned slightly positive.
If the downward trend continues until the close, the S&amp;P and Nasdaq will both decline for two consecutive trading days, with the S&amp;P continuing to move away from the record high set last Thursday. If the Dow maintains its upward momentum, it will rebound after falling back last week.
The small-cap Russell 2000 index, dominated by value stocks, fell by over 0.8% in the morning session, further moving away from the closing high set in April 2022. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index fell by 0.8% in the morning session, declining for two consecutive days, but the decline was significantly milder than the 1.5% drop last Friday. The Nasdaq Technology Market Cap Weighted Index (NDXTMC), which measures the performance of tech stocks in the Nasdaq 100 index, fell by over 1.5% in the morning session, nearly erasing the losses, but later expanded the decline, moving further away from the record closing high set last Thursday.
Most of the seven major tech stocks, including Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, Google's parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Tesla, fell during midday trading. However, Tesla maintained an overall upward trend during trading hours amid reports that Tesla's German factory is expected to resume power supply as early as Monday and may resume production faster than expected. Tesla surged by 4.3% in the morning session, with the gains narrowing to around 2% by midday, poised to move out of the recent lows set in May 2023.
In the realm of FAANMG's six major tech stocks, Meta plunged by 59% in the morning session and over 4% at noon, continuing to fall from the closing historical high set last Thursday; Amazon dropped by over 2% in the morning and nearly 2% at noon, possibly extending its two-day decline to a closing low since February 21; Microsoft fell by over 1% in the morning and less than 1% at noon, heading towards the low point since January 31 set last Wednesday; Netflix initially rose in the morning, with a slight decline at noon; while Apple, which rose against the market by 1% last Friday, surged by over 1% at noon, rebounding after hitting a closing low for two consecutive days since October 27, 2023, following a seven-day decline. Alphabet rose by over 2% at noon, set to rise for the third consecutive day, continuing to refresh its closing high since February 29.
Chip stocks, after an overall decline last Friday, continued to slide, underperforming the market for two consecutive trading days. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the Semiconductor Industry ETF SOXX both dropped by over 2% in the morning and over 1% at noon, moving away from the closing record high set last Thursday.
Among chip stocks, Nvidia initially fell by over 3.8%, then rose by over 1.4% after the morning session, but fell again towards the end of the morning, dropping by over 1% at noon, extending the two-day decline from the historical new high set over the past six trading days, but the decline will be less than the 5.5% drop last Friday; TSMC's US stocks fell by over 4.6% in the morning, AMD by over 5.1%, both dropping by over 4% at noon, after hitting a new closing high for two consecutive days; Arm fell by nearly 3% at noon, Broadcom by nearly 2%, while Intel rose by over 1% after initially falling in the morning.
Popular Chinese concept stocks have risen for two consecutive trading days, outperforming the market for two days. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index (HXC) rose by 3.4% in the morning and over 2% at noon, set to rise for two consecutive days to a closing high since March 1. The Chinese concept ETFs KWEB and CQQQ both rose by over 3% at noon. Among individual stocks, Wanwu Data surged by over 33% in the morning, narrowing to around 20% in the morning. Reports indicated that after Hillhouse and others expressed interest in investing in its overseas data center business, Wanwu Data surged by over 33% in the morning and over 20% at noon, Bilibili opened with a rise of over 7%, surging by over 10% in the morning and maintaining an increase of over 10% at noon, Dada Group also rose by over 10% at noon, XPeng by over 7%, NIO Inc. USD OV by nearly 7%, JD.com by over 6%, Baidu, Tencent Music by nearly 4%, Alibaba, Pinduoduo by over 2%, NetEase, Li Auto by over 1%.
Among the stocks with significant fluctuations, after the U.S. Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into the January incident of a panel falling off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX aircraft, Boeing (BA) fell by nearly 4.4% in the morning, marking the largest intraday drop since January 25.

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Chip stocks underperformed the market for two consecutive days, with NVIDIA falling nearly 4%; Tesla once surged over 4%, Apple saw two consecutive gains; Boeing dropped over 4% during the session. Chinese concept stocks surged over 3% at one point, outperforming the market for two days. At midday, XPeng rose over 7%, NIO Inc. surged nearly 7%. Stay tuned for updates.

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Invesco Golden Dragon China

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Before the heavyweight CPI data, chip stocks continue to drag down the US stock market, Chinese concept stocks outperform the market again, Bilibili's stock price surged by over 10%, and Bitcoin broke through $72,000 for the first time.