NY Dow rebounds for the first time in 4 days Powell Chairman again mentions “disinflation”

2/8 (Wednesday) morning market trends (compared to the previous day)

traditional finance

- NY Dow: $34,156 +0.8%
- Nasdaq: $12,113 +1.9%
- Nikkei Average: ¥27,685 -0.02%
- USD/JPY: 131.1 -1.1%
- USD Index: 103.2 -0.2%
- 10-year US Treasury yield: 3.68 +1.4%
- Gold Futures: $1,883 +0.2%

crypto assets

Bitcoin: $23,240 +1.2%
Ethereum: $1,668 +1.5%

Today’s New York Dow and Nasdaq rebounded for the first time in four days. US Federal Reserve Board (FRB) Chairman Jerome Powell, in an interview with the Economic Club on the 7th, seems to have been favorably reaffirmed that “the process of disinflation (a slowdown in price increases) has begun.”

connection: Ahead of Powell’s lecture at the Economic Club, a wait-and-see trend such as Bitcoin

The background to the chairman’s recent remarks is the result of the US employment statistics for January, which greatly exceeded market expectations. The employment statistics were announced after the FOMC meeting, and at the FOMC press conference, the focus was on whether the chairman, who was becoming somewhat dovish, would change his tone in response to the employment statistics. The process has begun, but there is still a long way to go… 2023 is set to be the year in which inflation slows significantly” and “It’s good that disinflation started without hurting the job market. “We expect continued interest rate hikes to be appropriate, but have not yet reached a sufficiently restrained level,” and “We expect some softening in labor market conditions… We need to raise interest rates and then see if it’s enough.” In particular, the reference to “disinflation” is a word that was presented at the FOMC press conference, and it seems that it is not far from the market consensus for the next two interest rate hikes.

Meanwhile, before the chairman’s remarks, hawkish Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said at the event that “personally, I expect rates to remain around 5.4%” as the peak needed to keep inflationary pressures under control. The 5.4% is higher than the 5.00-5.25% assumed last December. Kashkari is one of the voters at this year’s FOMC.

connection: Bitcoin wait-and-see mood, AI-related stocks continue to be searched for in the stock and alt markets

Important economic indicators and plans for February

10th 24:00 (Friday): U.S. Michigan Consumer Confidence Index February preliminary figures
8:50 on the 13th (Monday): Japan October-December Quarterly Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP, preliminary figures)
14th 22:30 (Tue): US January Consumer Price Index (CPI)
15th 22:30 (Wednesday): US January retail sales
23rd 22:30 (Thursday): U.S. October-December Quarterly GDP Personal Consumption and Core PCE Revised Values
24th 22:30 (Friday): US January Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE deflator)
24th 24:00 (Friday): University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index February Confirmed value

connection: What is the “dollar index” that also pays attention to the virtual currency market | Commentary for beginners

US stocks

NY Dow and Nasdaq have increased volatility in response to the chairman’s remarks. There was also a scene that turned to reversal selling, but IT and high-tech stocks were bought back, but some AI-related stocks fell sharply.

Microsoft rose 4.2% from the previous day. At the announcement event on the 7th, US time, it unveiled a new version of its search engine “Bing” equipped with the technology used in “ChatGPT”. He explained that the latest version of Bing will enable conversational search like ChatGPT, where you can ask questions in natural sentences and get answers. Microsoft also plans to incorporate such technology into many other products besides Bing.

connection: VC investment in generative AI surged in 2022, exceeding 350 billion yen

Compared to the previous day for individual stocks, NVIDIA +5.1%, c3.ai -11%, Big Bear.ai -20%, Tesla +1%, Microsoft +4.2%, Alphabet +4.6%, Amazon -0.069%, Apple +1.9% , Meta +3%, Coinbase -4.2%, Algo Blockchain +18.9%.

connection: Recommended for cryptocurrency investors, advantageous shareholder benefits “10 selections”

dollar-yen fall

The dollar-yen exchange rate is 131.1 yen per dollar, down 1.1% from the previous day. The market seemed to have expected Chairman Powell to become more hawkish in response to the US employment statistics, but the dollar was sold after comments similar to those made at the press conference after the US FOMC last week. The dollar/yen exchange rate dipped to the mid-130 yen range at one point, but then returned to the low-131 yen range.

Source: Yahoo! Finance

connection: The background of the “strong dollar” that affects the virtual currency market also explains the correlation and factors of the weak yen

Cryptocurrency/Blockchain-related Stocks (Year-on-Year Change/Year-to-Week Change)

Coinbase | $71.4 (-4.2%/-4.3%)
MicroStrategy | $283.8 (+0.6%/-0.3%)
Hat 8 Mining | $2.1 (-8.8%/-1.8%)

Canadian Bitcoin Miner Hat 8 has announced that it will merge with rival US mining firm Bitcoin Corp. The combined company, which will be called Hut 8 Corp after the merger, will have a combined market capitalization of about $990 million, according to the companies, and will be owned equally by both companies’ shareholders.

connection: Stock investment recommended for virtual currency investors, representative virtual currency stocks of Japan and the United States “10 selections”

GM radio of the week

connection: Connext, aiming for cross-chain UX optimization, will participate in the 5th “GM Radio”

The 5th GM Radio will start at 21:00 on Thursday, February 9th. Guest was Connext co-founder Rahul Sethuram. We will ask questions about Connext’s public launch, benefits of xApps, future plans, and more.

Our next #GMRadio will feature @ConnextNetworka modular interoperability protocol!

Our guest will be CTO Rahul Sethuram (@RHLSTHRM)

Tune in to hear about their recent upgrade launch, natively cross-chain apps (xApps), and more!

See you there! https://t.co/SvfiT0YXt0 pic.twitter.com/sD8M8wg0oO

— CoinPost Global (We’re hiring!) (@CoinPost_Global) February 3, 2023

GM radio last week

The 4th GM Radio was held last Friday. Four guests, including the co-founder of LayerZero Labs, who participated for the second time, and the founder of DeFi Kingdoms, talked about “Possibilities of cross-chain games” and “Challenges of blockchain games”.