ADDX GO Market Morning Wrap - 31st May

Stock Market

On Friday, US Eastern Time, the three major US stock indexes closed mixed. The Dow rose 0.12%, with a cumulative monthly gain of 3.94%; the Nasdaq fell 0.32%, with a cumulative monthly gain of 9.56%; the S&P 500 fell 0.01%, with a cumulative monthly gain of 6.15%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes recorded their largest monthly gains since November 2023.

U.S. President Trump’s remarks on trade policy once again injected uncertainty into the market, causing stock indexes to fluctuate lower in early trading. However, they later recovered part of the losses, but due to the persistent trade uncertainties, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes still closed lower.

Large tech stocks were mixed. Apple rose 0.45%, Meta rose 0.38%, Microsoft rose 0.37%, Amazon fell 0.34%, Google A fell 0.07%, Tesla fell 3.34%, and Nvidia fell 2.92%.

Palantir’s stock price rose 7.7%. Reports said the Trump administration has expanded the data analytics software company’s business scope in the federal government in recent months.

Ulta Beauty soared more than 11%. The company’s first fiscal quarter results exceeded expectations and raised its annual guidance, as consumers continued to buy large amounts of beauty products despite growing economic concerns.

Clark Bellin, President and Chief Investment Officer of Bellwether Wealth, said, “Although the US stock market has rebounded strongly from its April lows, there is still a lot of uncertainty about tariffs, especially considering the legal battle brewing around the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.”

Global Hotspots

US-Japan trade talks make progress, agreement likely by June at earliest: Japan’s chief trade negotiator, Akira Akasawa, said progress has been made in the latest round of tariff negotiations with the Trump administration, and an agreement is expected to be reached early next month, but he did not disclose details.
US President Trump says steel import tariffs will be raised to 50%: US President Trump said on the 30th that he will raise the tariff on imported steel from 25% to 50%.
Southeast Asian private equity saw $2.6 billion in transactions in Q1, nearly half in energy sector equity: Southeast Asian private equity (PE) activity performed well in the first quarter of this year, with 14 transactions completed totaling $2 billion (approximately S$2.6 billion). A report by global accounting firm EY shows that private equity transactions in the energy sector accounted for 49% of total transaction value, driven mainly by large deals. This was followed by consumer goods (28%) and financial services (15%).
The Atlanta Fed sharply raised its forecast for US Q2 economic growth: The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model expects US Q2 GDP growth to be 3.8%, up from a previous forecast of 2.2%.

Company News

Anthropic's annualized revenue allegedly reaches $3 billion: Insiders said the annualized revenue of AI developer Anthropic is about $3 billion, a significant leap from nearly $1 billion in December 2024.
Trump Media Group completes $2.44 billion financing: On Friday local time, Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) announced that it has completed the previously announced private placement with approximately 50 institutional investors.
The Trump administration will allow Nippon Steel to fully own US Steel (X.US): The Trump administration is making final arrangements to approve Nippon Steel’s plan to acquire US Steel as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Forex & Commodities

COMEX gold futures closed down 0.92% at $3,313.1/oz, and COMEX silver futures closed down 1.04% at $33.075/oz.

WTI crude futures settled at $60.79 per barrel, down 15 cents, or 0.25%. Brent crude futures settled at $63.90 per barrel, down 25 cents, or 0.39%.

The US Dollar Index rose 0.08% to 99.44, up 0.32% on the week. Most non-US currencies fell.

Key Events

Hedge funds pile into oil shorts as OPEC supply risks loom: As the market prepares for a new round of OPEC+ production increases, hedge funds’ bearish bets on Brent crude have risen to their highest level since October. Data from ICE European Futures Exchange showed that as of the week ending May 27, fund managers increased their net short positions on Brent by 16,922 contracts to 130,019 contracts, the highest in eight months. Meanwhile, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed that net short positions on WTI crude rose to a three-week high.

Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin fell 1.2% to $104,532, with the cryptocurrency’s 24-hour trading volume rising 5.1% to $582.8 billion.

Ethereum (ETH-USD), the second-largest digital asset by market cap, fell 2.8% to $2,574.

XRP (XRP-USD) dropped 2.9%, BNB (BNB-USD) lost 1.2%, and Solana (SOL-USD) dipped 3.7%. Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) declined 7.3%, and Cardano (ADA-USD) dropped 2.2%.

The total market value of the cryptocurrency industry fell 1.7% in the past 24 hours to $3.29 trillion, with trading volume dipping 6.7% to $148.5 billion.

Key Events

US SEC decides to drop lawsuit against Binance: Court documents show that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has decided to withdraw its lawsuit against Binance.