The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Comp closed at record highs again on Wednesday ahead of June's consumer price index report out today
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Chinese Hunt Brother Takes On JPMorgan and Wins
Cailianshe reported on July 10 (Researcher Chen Kandi) Recently, Wind Data released the "Futures Big Data Ranking List in the First Half of 2024", and one of the rankings on the futures companies' profit list attracted attention.
The content shows that in the gold futures growth list in the first half of 2024, Zhongcai Futures ranked first in the country with a total profit of 5.445 billion, far exceeding the second place Haitong Futures' 1.2 billion and Yongan Futures' 900 million.
"After November 2022, we have noticed that Zhongcai Futures continued to build long positions in gold and silver, and the counterparty of the short positions at that time was JPMorgan Futures." Wang Lei, a certified intermediate gold analyst at the Shanghai Gold Exchange, told Cailianshe that in early 2023, as the US economy continued to strengthen, gold experienced a significant decline.
During this period, it was observed that Zhongcai Futures' positions had a significant retracement, and its asset management product "Another Lotus" No. 1 product was also facing liquidation.
Thank you to my colleague and friend Bai Xiaojun who posted this today
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Market News:
"Apple aims to ship at least 90 million iPhone 16 devices in the latter half of this year, ." Source: Bloomberg
"Samsung Electronics has included enhanced artificial intelligence features in its annual refresh of its foldable phone line-up, as it tries to stave off competition from Chinese rivals in the fast-growing market.Source: FT
"President Biden’s push to shut down efforts by some Democrats to get him to abandon his re-election campaign sprang leaks Wednesday, as a party heavyweight indicated his candidacy remains an open question and a megawatt Hollywood donor urged him to step aside. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said “it’s up to the president to decide if he’s going to run”... effectively brushing aside his oft-stated vow to stay in the race after a disastrous debate last month. Filmmaker George Clooney said Biden should quit the race to give Democrats a chance of defeating Donald Trump." Source: WSJ
"President Emmanuel Macron broke his silence for the first time since Sunday’s snap elections to call for a broad “governing pact” to end the political impasse of a badly fractured French parliament... Macron claimed that “no one won” the vote since no party or alliance had come even close to an outright majority. Without using the word “coalition”, the president urged political parties to “engage in sincere and loyal dialogue to build a solid majority, which has to be pluralistic, for the country"." Source: FT
"Microsoft said it would give up its observer seat on the OpenAI board amid regulatory scrutiny into generative artificial intelligence in Europe and the U.S." Source: CNBC
"Costco Wholesale is raising its membership fees for the first time since 2017, less than four months after Gary Millerchip took over as its finance chief." Source: WSJ
"Elon Musk said during a livestream on Wednesday that his brain tech startup Neuralink is hoping to implant its second human patient within “the next week or so.”
Geopolitics:
The Gaza cease-fire agreement framework is reportedly agreed, and the parties are now “negotiating details of how it will be implemented”, according to a senior US official cited by Washington Post's Ignatius. "US officials say the framework of a three-stage deal is down to implementation details." "Officials caution that although the framework is in place, a final pact probably isn’t imminent, and the details are complex and will take time to work through." "A final possible bonus of a Gaza cease-fire is that Saudi Arabia has signaled it is prepared to 'move forward on normalization' of relations with Israel", according to a US official.
White House's Kirby says he is cautiously optimistic things are moving in the right direction on Gaza ceasefire talks, according to CNN.
China's mission to the EU said the declaration of the NATO summit in Washington is full of 'Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric,' and the China-related content is full of provocations, 'lies, incitement, and smears'
Taiwan is to strengthen its civil defence to prepare against China's threat with the government working to prepare public services and infrastructure to function in wartime as China’s aggressive stance fuels concerns about the risk of open conflict, according to FT.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister says US and Germany's decision to deploy long-range missiles in Germany is aimed at harming Russia's security; says Russia will respond "in a military manner", according to RIA
Some headlines via NewSquawk or DataTrek
Data on Deck:
MONDAY, JULY 8 3:00 pm Consumer credit May $8.0B $6.4B
TUESDAY, JULY 9 10:00 am Fed Chairman Powell testimony to Senate
WEDNESDAY, JULY 10 10:00 am Fed Chairman Powell testimony to House
THURSDAY, JULY 11 8:30 am Core CPI year over year 3.4% 3.4%
FRIDAY, JULY 12 8:30 am PPI year over year -- 2.2% 1
