Overnight US stocks | The three major indices closed down, the S&P 500 index fell for three consecutive days, and Tesla (TSLA.US) fell more than 1%

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on Tuesday, the three major indices closed down, and the S&P 500 index declined for the third consecutive trading day. Bitcoin failed in another attempt to break through the 90,000 mark. The newly released minutes of the Federal Reserve's December monetary policy meeting show that most officials believe that if inflation falls as expected over time, further interest rate cuts are appropriate. However, some officials also made it clear that they believe interest rates should remain unchanged “for a period of time” after the December meeting.

[US stocks] At the close, the Dow fell 94.87 points, or 0.20%, to 48367.06 points; the NASDAQ fell 55.27 points, or 0.24%, to 23419.08 points; the S&P 500 index fell 9.50 points, or 0.14%, to 6896.24 points. Tesla (TSLA.US) fell more than 1%, Intel (INTC.US) rose 1.7%, and Nvidia (NVDA.US) fell 0.3%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose and fell 0.26%, Baidu (BIDU.US) rose 4.4%, and Xiaopeng Motors (XPEV.US) rose 3.7%.

[European stocks] The German DAX30 index rose 271.31 points, or 1.11%, to 24636.23 points; the British FTSE 100 index rose 77.60 points, or 0.79%, to 9944.13 points; the French CAC40 index rose 56.13 points, or 0.69%, to 8168.15 points; the European Stoxx 50 index rose 43.74 points, or 0.76%, to 5795.45 points; Spain's IBEX35 index rose 155.82 points, or 0.91%. 17351.62 points; Italy's FTSE MIB index rose 528.49 points, or 1.19%, to 44964.50 points.

[Asia Pacific Stock Market] The Nikkei 225 Index fell 0.37%, South Korea's KOSPI Index fell 0.15%, India's BSE SENSEX fell slightly, and the Indonesian Composite Index rose slightly.

[Foreign Exchange] The US dollar index, which measures the US dollar against the six major currencies, rose 0.21% on the same day and closed at 98.241 at the end of the foreign exchange market. As of the end of the exchange market in New York, 1 euro was worth 1.1747 US dollars, lower than 1.1767 US dollars on the previous trading day; 1 pound was worth 1.3466 US dollars, lower than 1.3507 US dollars on the previous trading day. 1 US dollar was worth 156.49 yen, up from 156.03 yen on the previous trading day; 1 US dollar was worth 0.7917 Swiss franc, higher than 0.7896 Swiss franc on the previous trading day; 1 US dollar was worth 1.3696 Canadian dollars, higher than 1.3684 Canadian dollars on the previous trading day; 1 US dollar was worth 9.1996 SEK, up from 9.1802 on the previous trading day.

[Cryptocurrency] Bitcoin rose more than 1.3% to 88396.44 US dollars; Ethereum rose more than 1% to 2,970 US dollars.

[Precious Metals] Spot gold rose 0.17% to $4338.83; spot silver rose 0.05% to $76.257.

[Crude oil] Light crude oil futures for February 2026 delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 13 cents, or 0.22%, to close at $57.95 a barrel; London Brent crude oil futures for February delivery fell 2 cents, or 0.03%, to close at $61.92 a barrel.

[Macro News]

Some Federal Reserve officials are wary of further interest rate cuts early next year. According to the minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday, when the Federal Reserve held a meeting this month to decide to cut interest rates, some officials said they were unwilling to support further easing of the policy in the near future. This indicates that further interest rate cuts may face resistance at the next meeting in January next year. The minutes of the meeting showed that since the rise in prices continued longer than expected by the Federal Reserve, the decision to cut interest rates became more and more difficult. Since the December meeting, more economic data has been released, showing that strong consumer spending helped drive strong economic growth, despite a slight rise in unemployment. The new data, due to be released next month, could reshape the minds of Federal Reserve officials before the interest rate meeting in late January.

Federal Reserve Meeting Minutes: Participants generally expect the inflation rate to remain high in the short term. The minutes of the December meeting of the Federal Reserve mentioned that with regard to the outlook for inflation, participants generally expect inflation to remain high to a certain extent in the short term, then gradually fall back to 2%. Many participants emphasized that they expected the impact of tariffs on core commodity inflation to weaken, but some participants expressed uncertainty about when these effects would abate and the extent to which tariffs would eventually be passed on to terminal commodity prices. Some participants said their business contacts reported ongoing input cost pressures unrelated to tariffs, but some participants indicated that weak demand limited the ability of some firms to raise prices, or that increased productivity of firms might enable some firms to cope with these cost pressures. Most participants expected housing service inflation to continue to decline, and a few participants expected core non-housing service inflation to continue to decline. Participants generally agreed that inflation risks are still biased towards the upside, although some participants indicated that they believe these upside risks have been reduced. Some participants emphasized that the risk that the inflation rate might last longer than expected is worth paying attention to.

The economic growth rate forecast by the Federal Reserve staff is faster than in October. Staff in the minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting mentioned that compared with the forecast prepared for the October meeting, overall, the real GDP growth rate is expected to accelerate slightly by 2028. This mainly reflects that financial market conditions are expected to provide greater support and that potential output growth expectations have increased. After 2025, as the negative effects of high tariffs abate, and fiscal policies and financial market conditions continue to support spending, the GDP growth rate is expected to remain above the potential growth rate until 2028. As a result, the unemployment rate is expected to gradually decline after this year and reach a level slightly lower than the natural unemployment rate estimated by staff in 2027. Overall, staff inflation forecasts for 2025 and 2026 are slightly lower than those presented at the October meeting, but forecasts for 2027 and 2028 are similar to before.

[Individual Stock News]

Meta's (META.US) deal to acquire Manus AI could be worth as much as $2.5 billion. We learned from a source familiar with the matter that the Meta Platforms' deal to acquire Manus AI could be worth around $2.5 billion, including employee retention compensation. Manus sells its products to businesses on a subscription basis, marking Meta's first large-scale foray into enterprise-grade artificial intelligence. The deal has the potential to put Meta on a more equal footing with rivals Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI in the AI agency competition.

Nvidia (NVDA.US) plans to acquire AI21 Labs in Israel for up to $3 billion. According to reports, Nvidia is in in-depth negotiations to buy Israeli artificial intelligence startup AI21 Labs at a price of up to $3 billion. The 2023 round of financing valued AI21 Labs at $1.4 billion. Nvidia and Google (GOOG.US), a subsidiary of Alphabet, participated in this round of financing. AI21 Labs, founded by Amnon Shashua and two others in 2017, is one of many startups benefiting from the AI boom. Shashua is also the founder and CEO of Mobileye, an autonomous vehicle technology developer. AI21 Labs has been seeking sale for a long time, and negotiations with Nvidia have made significant progress in recent weeks, the report said. The paper notes that Nvidia's main interest in AI21 Labs appears to be its team of around 200 employees, most of whom have advanced degrees and “rare expertise in artificial intelligence development.” According to the report, the transaction amount for the acquisition of AI21 Labs is expected to be between 2 billion and 3 billion US dollars.

Amazon (AMZN.US) will invest up to $50 billion in AI systems for US government agencies. Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on Monday a plan to build and deploy systems dedicated to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing for the US government for the first time. The plan promises to invest up to $50 billion to enhance the company's artificial intelligence and supercomputing capabilities for US federal government customers. The investment will begin in 2026. At that time, data centers will be built in the AWS top secret region, the AWS confidential region, and the AWS government cloud (US) region, using advanced computing and networking technology, and adding nearly 1.3 gigawatts of artificial intelligence and supercomputing capabilities.

It is reported that Warner Brothers (WBD.US) plans to reject Paramount's (PSKY.US) takeover offer next week. According to sources, Warner Bros. Exploration plans to once again reject a takeover offer from Paramount Skydance, which previously revised its terms of purchase. The Warner Bros. board of directors will meet next week. One of the board's concerns is that Paramount has yet to raise its bid, and Warner Bros. had previously rejected Paramount's bid, believing it was not as good as Netflix's bid. Paramount publicly announced the acquisition proposal at a cash price of $30 per share on December 8, and Warner Bros. reached a deal with Netflix three days ago. The deal only involved Warner Bros.'s film production department and streaming business. Since then, Paramount has revised its acquisition proposal twice, and most recently promised that billionaire Larry Ellison would personally guarantee $40.4 billion in equity financing and other related commitments.