MIEX Offical

Two events took place on August 13. One was a speech from Lael Brainard at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's Innovation Office Hours. The other was the publication of a paper in the FEDS notes series on “Comparing Means of Payment: What Role for a Central Bank Digital Currency?”. It is no coincidence that both events happened on the same day. The Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) wants to communicate that it takes CBDCs seriously and is engaged in efforts to research a path toward implementation. The Fed’s primary purpose is to ensure the financial stability of the US in the service of its citizens. It has been an open secret that the FED had been working on researching CBDC. They were in stealth mode. Some indications came up during the House Finance Committee hearings on June 17. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell made it clear that as CBDC is an extremely important part of the national infrastructure and under the purview of the Fed, the Fed would be in charge of the co...

Shares in China electric vehicle maker XPeng, whose investors include Internet heavyweight Alibaba Group and Beijing smartphone supplier Xiaomi, soared by 41% from their IPO price on their debut at the New York Stock Exchange today.  That big gain made the company’s CEO one of the richest men in the global auto industry.   He Xiaopeng, 42, who earlier in his career made a fortune by co-founding a mobile browser business in China, holds Xpeng shares worth$4.2 billion, based on figures in the company’s prospectus.   Xpeng’s IPO follows the June 30 Nasdaq listing of another China EV maker, Li Auto, which raised $1.1 billion and whose shares have risen since. They plunged 17% to $19.38 today, but are still far above their $11.50 IPO price. Xpeng’s offering – at $15 per American Depositary Share—and successful listing follows U.S. stock gains by Tesla and China-based Nio amid investor optimism about the market for EVs, smart cars and autonomous driving vehicles. ...

Citigroup, which held one of the most bearish outlooks for stocks among Wall Street firms, has raised its year-end price target for the S&P 500 to a modest loss from current levels thanks to “unbridled” support from the Federal Reserve, which the bank says will do “whatever it takes” to prevent another market crash. Citi analysts, led by chief U.S. equity strategist Tobias Levkovich, on Tuesday raised their price target for the S&P 500 index to 3,300 from 2,900, their second upgrade in as many months.   The bank’s strategists said that their earlier bearish prediction for the stock market, which was one of the lowest on Wall Street, now appears increasingly “unlikely” as the Federal Reserve continues to aggressively ease monetary policy.   “ Unbridled Fed easing, negative real [interest] rates and technical indicators show resistance breakouts” in the market, the analysts said in a note, adding that investors firmly believe that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell “has ...

Apple hit a new milestone on Wednesday, becoming the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a market capitalization of over $2 trillion and doubling in valuation over the last two years.   The iPhone maker’s stock is up almost 55% so far in 2020, and shares have rallied more than 106% since the market hit a low point amid the coronavirus recession on March 23 (compared to the benchmark S&P 500’s gain of 51% over that period).   Now trading at nearly $470 per share, Apple’s stock is at an all-time high, and Wall Street analysts are still quite bullish that it can continue to rally: 61% give it a “buy” rating and 27% a “hold” rating, according to Bloomberg data.   Apple’s market cap now eclipses that of other U.S. tech giants, including Microsoft ($1.7 trillion), Amazon ($1.6 trillion), Google parent Alphabet ($1.1 trillion) and Facebook ($761 billion).   Apple was also the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, which it did just...

 Bitcoin, along with the wider cryptocurrency market, has come to life over the last few months.   The bitcoin price, after crashing to under $4,000 per bitcoin in the broad March coronavirus crash, has bounced to around $12,000—boosted by some high-profile investors betting on bitcoin.   Now, bitcoin and cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale has said "the current bitcoin market structure parallels that of early 2016 before [bitcoin] began its historic bull run,"—meaning the bitcoin price could be headed sharply higher.   "Amidst unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus, investors are searching for ways to protect against an ever-expanding monetary supply," Grayscale research director Phil Bonello wrote in a report titled Making Sense of Bitcoin’s Value, outlining different ways of valuing bitcoin.   "Because of bitcoin’s unique qualities—such as its verifiable scarcity and a supply that can’t be controlled by a central authority—we believe i...

 The S&P 500 rose to a new record-closing high on Tuesday, finishing above its previous all-time high in February and fully recovering its losses from the selloff caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% on Tuesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7%. The S&P finished above its old record-closing-high of 3,386 set back in February, while also surpassing its previous intraday high of 3,393 earlier on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the index tumbled over 30% from its February record as the coronavirus pandemic sent the economy into a recession. “It’s hard to believe, but the 2020 bear market is officially over,” wrote Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer Americas for UBS Global Wealth Management, in a recent note. The Nasdaq also hit a new record high on Tuesday, while the Dow lagged as shares of Home Depot and Walmart both fell, despite reporting second-quarter earnings that beat expectati...

 It seems highly likely that the U.S. recession is over. However, it’s not all great news and the markets are looking past it. The U.S. markets have rallied for various reasons. A potentially short recession is part of it. However, the $3 trillion of stimulus applied to the U.S. economy has been important too, as has the tailwinds for many mega-cap stocks within the index such as Microsoft MSFT +0.1%, Alphabet (Google), Apple AAPL -0.1%, Facebook and Amazon AMZN -0.4% . These companies have seen trends within the pandemic that have helped their businesses as tech becomes more important in a socially distanced world. Yes, many more firms in sectors from travel to bricks and mortal retail have hit real problems, but their index weight is a lot smaller. Since the index is driven more by the tech names with large weightings, they have more of a say in driving the stock market than they do in impacting the U.S. economy.   It is good news that the economy is likely now on a po...