Real-time News

According to Politico, the White House will hold a conference call with U.S. oil executives on Thursday.

1. The three major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.15% to 48,463.72 points, the S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 7,022.95 points, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.59% to 24,016.02 points, marking its eleventh consecutive day of gains. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit new closing highs. Caterpillar fell more than 3%, Merck fell more than 1%, leading the decline in the Dow. Allbirds surged more than 582%, triggering the circuit breaker mechanism multiple times during the session. The company announced a complete transformation, shifting from footwear manufacturing to AI computing infrastructure services. The Wind U.S. Tech Giants Index rose 2.22%, Tesla rose more than 7%, and Microsoft rose more than 4%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 0.75%, Pony.ai rose nearly 8%, and Zai Lab rose nearly 6%. 2. European stock indices closed mixed. The German DAX index rose 0.09% to 24,066.7 points, the French CAC40 index fell 0.64% to 8,274.57 points, and the UK FTSE 100 index fell 0.47% to 10,559.58 points. 3. International precious metals futures generally closed lower. COMEX gold futures fell 0.75% to $4,813.90 per ounce, and COMEX silver futures fell 0.53% to $79.11 per ounce. 4. The WTI crude oil futures contract rose 0.12% to $91.39 per barrel; the Brent crude oil futures contract rose 0.08% to $94.87 per barrel. 5. Most London base metals rose, with LME zinc up 1.72% to $3,400.0/ton, LME aluminum up 1.71% to $3,624.0/ton, LME lead up 1.63% to $1,966.5/ton, LME nickel up 0.08% to $18,220.0/ton, LME copper down 0.06% to $13,276.0/ton, and LME tin down 1.65% to $49,500.0/ton.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama: Regarding the exchange rate issue, we have agreed to further strengthen communication with US Treasury Secretary Bessenter.

Market news: Faraday Future has revised its $10 million equity investment agreement, increasing the investment amount to $12 million. The revision removes the anti-dilution clause, aiming to strengthen the protection of existing shareholders' interests.

Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Economy: The US-Ukraine Joint Reconstruction Fund is expected to approve a second project this summer, potentially involving the energy sector. A third joint reconstruction fund project will be announced later this year.

Market news: European Central Bank officials indicated they prefer to keep interest rates unchanged in April.

Australian Energy Minister: The fire at Viva Energy's refinery remains out of control. The impact appears to be primarily on petrol production, while the refinery continues to produce diesel and jet fuel at lower levels.

According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Vice President Vance is expected to lead any future high-level talks with Iran.

According to Axios: OpenAI is lobbying to expand the role of artificial intelligence in the life sciences.

April 16th - A Google-affiliated data center is seeking to raise $5.7 billion through a junk bond issuance, potentially becoming the largest such financing deal in the AI expansion boom. According to sources familiar with the matter, Morgan Stanley launched marketing on Wednesday and is expected to price the notes as early as this week. The source added that the funds raised will be used to build two data centers in a campus in Sullivan County, Indiana. These facilities will be leased to cloud computing startup Fluidstack, with back-end support provided by Google. Data shows that this deal is not only the largest dollar junk bond issuance for data centers but also the largest such bond ever led by a single Wall Street institution (Morgan Stanley).

Iranian Parliament Speaker Qalibaf: The United States should correct its "Israel First" mistake and withdraw from it.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf: The United States must abide by the agreement.

ECB Executive Board member Schnabel: We must remain reliant on data and carefully consider which data can tell us that inflation may become entrenched and have secondary effects.

ECB Executive Board member Schnabel: We are in a relatively favorable position because we successfully brought inflation down to 2% before the war began, and the monetary policy stance is generally neutral.

ECB Executive Board member Schnabel: The ECB can take the time to analyze the impact of Iran.

ECB Executive Board member Schnabel: Policy decisions must be weighed very carefully. We do not want to impose unnecessary costs on the economy.

ECB Executive Board member Schnabel: The memory of high inflation remains very vivid. Inflation expectations may be more fragile.

April 16 - According to data from the U.S. Treasury Department, China held $693.3 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in February, a decrease of $1.1 billion from the previous month; Japan held $1.2393 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds in February, an increase of $14 billion from the previous month; and the United Kingdom held $897.3 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in February, an increase of $17.6 billion from the previous month.

Foreign investors made net purchases of $2 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in February, compared with $49.9 billion in the previous month.

Sources say SpaceX is arranging site visits for investors in its large IPO.