The growth of stock markets, speeches by the heads of the Federal Reserve and the ECB, news from GameStop, Apple

Hopes that the US inflation genie is back in the bottle have given investors around the world confidence that they can snap up stocks and riskier currencies for a fraction of the dollar's price.

Wall Street's rally to new records has provided gains across Asia, which bodes well for Europe, with new all-time highs beckoning for the FTSE and DAX.

There are a variety of central bank speakers throughout the day, with no fewer than four regional Fed governors speaking at various venues: Thomas Barkin, Raphael Bostic, Loretta Mester and Patrick Harker. Fed Vice Chairman for Supervision Michael Barr also testifies in the Senate.

European Central Bank (ECB) speakers will include Vice President Luis de Guindos, Bank of Spain Governor Pablo Hernandez de Cos and Bank of Portugal Governor Mario Centeno. Megan Green takes to the podium at the Bank of England (BoE) to talk about the UK labor market.

Market participants still believe the ECB will likely be the first among the world's major central banks to cut rates. However, the Bank of England could follow suit in just a few days with a policy decision on 20 June.

The Chinese government is considering having local governments across the country buy up millions of unsold homes. This could be one of the most ambitious attempts to save the crisis real estate market - Bloomberg.

Oracle May Sign $10 Billion Deal with Musk's AI Startup - The Information.

British personal computer maker Raspberry Pi has announced that it is considering an initial public offering in London. It marks a rare win for the exchange after a number of UK companies decided to list in the US - Bloomberg.

Huawei is reviewing its retail strategy and is aggressively opening flagship stores in China. Moreover, some of them are located a stone's throw from Apple stores. The company is seeking to reclaim the throne of premium electronics in the world's largest smartphone market - Reuters.

Tesla plans to lay off an additional 601 employees in California. The automaker is carrying out a series of job cuts around the world that began a month ago amid falling sales and intensifying price competition - Reuters.

Billionaire Frank McCourt announced his intention to acquire the American business of TikTok - WSJ.

Japanese company Takeda will invest $2.2 billion under an agreement with Swiss drug developer AC Immune. The Swiss previously announced that they were close to discovering a cure for Alzheimer's disease.

North Korea could have stolen $3.6 billion worth of cryptocurrencies - UN. North Korean hackers have been carrying out cyberattacks on cryptocurrency companies for seven years - Reuters.

Foxconn is seeing sharp profit growth. The company is betting on AI for long-term growth - WSJ.

Payments company Waystar plans to relaunch its IPO. The private equity-backed company plans to debut on the stock market in June.

Wise and Pioneer are increasing fees.

Meta closes the Workplace tool. Meta said the company is discontinuing its Workplace product to focus on building AI and metaversion technologies.

Vanguard is preparing to name a former BlackRock executive as CEO. Salim Ramji ran the BlackRock exchange-traded fund and left in January.

BMO Capital Markets chief investment strategist Brian Belsky raised his year-end price forecast for the S&P 500 (GSPC) to 5600 from 5100.

He noted that market momentum is "likely to continue." This is about 7% higher than Monday's close.

Netflix (NFLX) has won the rights to broadcast two National Football League (NFL) games. which will air on Christmas Day, the company said in a post on Wednesday morning. Wall Street analysts and industry observers have long predicted that Netflix would eventually be forced to go all-in on sports, describing live events as streaming's last frontier as cable TV dwindles.

Shares of GameStop (GME) fell more than 25% on Wednesday as the meme stock's rally appears to be fading. Over the previous two sessions, GameStop stock had surged more than 180% amid a massive short squeeze following the return of Keith Gill, aka "Roaring Kitty," whose GameStop bull case fueled the 2021 meme stock rally.

FactSet on earnings season:
• At the end of 1Q24, 78% of S&P500 companies reported better than expected, which is above the 5-year average (77%) and above the 10-year average (74%). On average, companies are reporting 7.5% above expectations, below the 5-year average of 8.5% but above the 10-year average of 6.7%
• Revenue growth in 8 of 11 sectors. The leaders are Telecommunications and Information Technologies. A decrease was noted in 3 out of 11 sectors. Outsiders are energy, healthcare and materials.
• S&P 500 P/E is 20.4x - above the 5-year average (19.1x) and above the 10-year average (17.8x)

Insurance company Chubb (CB) turned out to be the mystery stock that Berkshire Hathaway bought in the 1st quarter. The stock is up 7% in premarket trading.

CSCO shares are up 4% after the report.

Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management dumped positions in Alphabet and Amazon.com in the first quarter. And also sold BIG, ORCL, BKNG, WBD, MGM. Bought PHYS (owns gold bars) and increased positions in BABA and JD.

Weak US macroeconomic data caused stock indices to update historical highs. US government bonds also rose in price. All because of the hope for a softer Fed.

Applied Materials, Copart, Deere, Take-Two Interactive Software and Walmart are holding conference calls today to discuss quarterly results.
The Census Bureau will release housing statistics for April. Growth is expected by 9.4% m/m to an annual figure of 1.45 million units.