U.S. stocks have continued to update record highs over the past two weeks. In the fourth quarter of last year, Goldman Sachs gave the S&P 500 a target price of 5,100 points in 2024, but now it seems to be within reach, and the Nasdaq 100 index is also moving towards the 18,000 point mark.
The stellar performance of the "Magnificent 7" in the United States has undoubtedly injected a boost into the US stock market. As of now, six of the "Big Seven Tech" have announced their results for the fourth quarter of 2023, except for Tesla (TSLA), all ** have exceeded consensus sales expectations, Microsoft has become the darling of Wall Street because of the AI boom, and Meta, which once halved its stock price in 2022, has also recovered, and the company, which has a market value of more than one trillion US dollars, also announced a $50 billion buyback on Friday, and the stock price soared by more than 20% on the day.
Recently, Chinese investors have become more enthusiastic about overseas themed ETFs, which is also a positive change in the globalization and diversification of asset allocation. However, due to excessive unilateral buying, the U.S. stock 50 ETF (513850) and Nasdaq ETF (513300) continue to show high premiums, once as high as 10% to 20%, which poses a significant risk to investors. As of Friday, the premium rates for these ETFs were still 57% and 245%, there is no shortage of institutional people told reporters that investors who are deployed before the Spring Festival still need to pay attention to the risks of premiums, suspension and market highs.
The "Big Seven of Technology" in the U.S. stock market is powerful.
The U.S. has a sharp margin on Friday, and the S&P 500 is up 1 in the past week4%, a record high, and 284 of the S&P 500** closed higher.
AI theme beneficiaries, infrastructure and long-term momentum were the best performing themes this week, while regional banks, Chinese concept stocks and commercial real estate were poorer performers.
In terms of prime brokerage business (mainly hedging customers), the overall net ** range of US stocks is small, mainly because the long positions in a single ** exceed the short sells. In a busy quarterly earnings week, the net ** on the information technology theme has been on the rise for the fourth week in a row, so the sector's net allocation continues to rise. In addition, the energy, financials and materials sectors were among the top net sellers this week. An international investment bank PB business person told reporters.
Earlier, the first financial report said that before the results were released, Microsoft, Apple, Google Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Facebook Meta and Tesla had a price-to-earnings ratio of up to 50 times. According to LPL Financial, these seven** will account for more than 100% of the total earnings growth of the entire S&P 500 index, which means that the "S&P 493" (493 S&P 500 constituents) may have lost money for the whole of last year.
Meta opened about 17% of its trading after its revenue and profit exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter of last year and announced its first dividend. Sales for the fourth quarter of 2023 increased 25% year-over-year, while expenses decreased 8% to 237$300 million. Earnings per share were 5$33, up from $4$96, revenue of $40.1 billion, higher than $391$800 million. Daily active users increased from 20.8 billion to 21.1 billion.
The market expects Amazon's performance to be better than expected, opening **14%. The e-commerce giant posted earnings per share of $1, above $0$80, with revenue of $170 billion, up from $166.2 billion**. Amazon Web Services' revenue met expectations of $24.2 billion, and advertising exceeded expectations. The company's CEO laid off 2After 70,000, efforts to control costs are paying off.
Apple's revenue and profit beat expectations, but it saw a 13 percent drop in sales in one of its most important markets, China. Earnings per share were 2$18, up from $2On a $10 basis, revenue was $1195$800 million, up from $1179$100 million **. The outlook shows weak iPhone sales, which sent the stock price lower.
Morningstar analyst William Kerwin told CBN, "In the long run, we insist that Apple can grow through its unique combination of hardware, software and services, which also triggers high customer switching costs and supports our evaluation that Apple has a wide moat." He said that in the future, Apple has room for further expansion in profit margins because of the company's transition to high-end models and the company's further vertical integration of hardware components.
Microsoft has undoubtedly been the market darling in the past year and the biggest beneficiary of generative AI. Microsoft's performance exceeded expectations, benefiting from AI in the fourth quarter of last year, with revenue reaching $62 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18%; Net income reached $26.5 billion, up 30% year-over-year. The company also said that it has the ability to develop AI on a large scale. The company's cash flow position was strong, with free cash flow of $9.1 billion in the quarter, up 86% year-over-year. R&D investment is significant, with R&D expenses, including AI, at $6.1 billion, up 22% year-on-year.
Tesla, which was the first to report earnings, may be the only dragger among the "Big Seven Tech", with its fourth-quarter net profit plummeting 40%. "But this [Tesla's performance plummeted] is an exception. Tesla has released record deliveries, but the industry is very competitive. Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at Jiasheng Group, previously told reporters.
High valuations are not a "big bubble".
The fate of the Big Seven depends on whether they achieve rapid revenue growth in 2024. The Big Seven have returned 8% year-to-date, compared to 3% for the other 493 in the S&P 500**. Goldman Sachs said that given the 18 times price-to-earnings ratio of the entire index, whether the 30 times price-to-earnings ratio of the "Big Seven" is sustainable is the most frequently asked question by clients.
D**id Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, mentioned in the latest report that as the dot-com bubble period showed, sustained outperformance requires ** to exceed the high level set by the consensus. Despite the high growth expectations, the portfolio will continue to outperform if earnings expectations are met and valuations remain unchanged.
At present, the fourth-quarter revenue of large-cap technology stocks has generally exceeded the market consensus valuation, with an average positive surprise of 13%。Assuming that the yet-to-be-announced Nvidia (NVDA) is in line with consensus expectations, the seven** achieved sales of $523 billion in the fourth quarter, up 14% year-over-year. The other 493** saw relatively low revenue growth of just 2%. Seven** margins widened by nearly 750bp year-on-year to 23%, while margins on the other 493** S&P 500 stocks contracted by 110bp year-on-year to 9%.
In the face of not low valuations, investors can't help but worry about the current "Big Seven". But most of the organizations interviewed by this reporter generally agreed that such concerns are now excessive.
Goldman Sachs research shows that the main protagonists of the technology bubble at that time were five companies - Microsoft, Cisco, General Electric, Intel, and ExxonMobil. Their overall returns were as high as 59% in 1999, when their cumulative market capitalization was as high as 2$3 trillion, and the overall S&P 500 has a market capitalization of only 10$37 trillion. At that time, the market expected a compound annual growth rate of 16% for the Big Five in three years (1999 to 2001), but in the end it only achieved 8%, which also led to the subsequent bursting of the bubble.
At present, Goldman Sachs believes that the S&P 500 will hit the target of 5,100 points by the end of the year. Regarding the Nasdaq index, Sinketa mentioned to reporters, "After hitting 17120 (weekly low) and slightly above the ascending trend line support and 20-day **, the Nasdaq 100 continued to rise, aiming for the all-time high of 17670." A break through this level is needed to bring 18000 into sight. In her view, a few years ago, the "growth" tech stocks in the Nasdaq 100 struggled against the backdrop of "prolonged interest rate hikes", but they are now the beneficiaries of a strong economy and high interest rates.
Be wary of the risk of continued high premiums for ETFs.
An uptrend doesn't mean there are no risks, especially for ETF investors in China.
For example, on January 29, 2024, E Fund issued a premium risk warning and temporary suspension announcement for US 50 ETFs for five consecutive trading days, and US 50 ETFs will be suspended from the market open to 10:30 on the same day on January 29, 2024. **According to the premium rate, trading may be temporarily suspended on January 29, 2024, and subsequent measures such as increasing the number of suspensions and extending the suspension time will be taken according to the actual situation, which is subject to the announcement at that time.
As early as January 23, the U.S. stock 50 ETF opened 1001%, when the premium rate of ETFs was as high as 20%. This means that investors need to pay an additional 20% premium to buy the ETF, which means that the gains are magnified for holders, but it also means that it is easy to lead to losses for new entrants.
The ETF's premium has lasted for several days, and an investor told reporters on January 22, "I bought a little U.S. stock ETF two weeks ago, and it rose 8% to 9% when I saw it in the morning today (22nd), but it has risen by 15% in the afternoon, as if I have increased leverage." On the same day, as cross-border ETFs continued to be sought after by funds, the US 50 ETF quickly rose in the afternoon, with a premium rate of more than 10%, and the Nasdaq ETF (513300) rose 354%。
Industry insiders told reporters that this is mostly because the QDII quota is limited and there are few selling orders, so buyers have no choice but to pay a higher premium, which is often prone to large fluctuations at this time. Investors may suffer significant losses if they invest blindly.