This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Stocks slumped on persistent fears
U.S. stocks fell Monday. The S&P 500 lost 0.96%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.94% and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 1.18%. But Super Micro shares jumped 15.8%. Apart from mainland China's Shanghai Composite, which rose around 3%, Asia-Pacific markets were mostly down Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell almost 8% after a hoped-for fiscal stimulus package by Chinese authorities failed to materialize.
No new stimulus, disappointingly
The chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission Zheng Shanjie pledged new measures to boost the economy, such as issuing ultra-long special sovereign bonds and releasing a 100 billion yuan investment plan soon. But Zheng didn't announce any major stimulus plans, disappointing investors and slowing the rally in Chinese stocks.
AI demand is still high
The artificial intelligence boom "still has some time to go," Foxconn Chief Executive and Chairman of Foxconn Young Liu told CNBC. Foxconn, which reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, manufactures electronics for technology giants like Apple and Nvidia. Demand for Nvidia's latest chip Blackwell is "much better than we thought," said Liu.
$1 billion miss in profit projection
Samsung Electronics warned investors it forecast lower-than-expected profits for the quarter ending September. The company projected profits to be around 9.10 trillion won ($6.7 billion), lower than the LSEG estimate of 11.456 trillion won ($7.7 billion). Samsung's memory business dragged on its profits because of shipping delays and "one-time costs."
[PRO] Doubt amid optimism on China
Wall Street banks and research houses are falling over one another to upgrade their bets on Chinese markets after the People's Bank of China announced a series of economic stimulus last week. At least one investment bank, however, thinks the rally in Chinese stocks might not be sustainable.
September's blockbuster jobs report, released Friday, lifted sentiment and stocks enough that major indexes reversed their losses and ended last week in the green, but just barely.
That halo has now faded away. Markets are back to contending with rising oil prices, inflation possibly reaccelerating, fewer-than-expected rate cuts and potentially even a distant recession.
Oil prices spiked yesterday after having their best week in over a year. And September's blockbuster jobs report, the futures market is pricing in a 14.2% chance the Fed will not cut rates at all at its November meeting. That's a drastic change from a week ago when traders thought there was a 34.7% chance of a 50-basis-point cut.
But a recession?
Admittedly, that's speculation on my part. But it bears pointing out that the yield curve between the 10- and 2-year Treasurys is "getting close to flipping back into danger territory," as CNBC's Jeff Cox noted.
Simply put, when the 10-year yield is lower than that of the 2-year, the yield curve is inverted - which has almost always preceded a recession since the mid-1970s. The yield curve inverted in early July 2022 and normalized in early September.
After Monday, however, the gap between the 10- and 2-year yields is now just 3.5 basis points. It's not inconceivable, then, for investors who take stock in what the yield curve signals to panic a little.
That said, strategists think a recession is a far-fetched idea, considering the health of the U.S. economy.
As David Roche, founder and strategist at Quantum Strategy, put it, "the economy is fine, thank you very much."
So much so that "the probability of the American economy going into recession, at least in the fourth quarter of this year, and probably in the first quarter of next year, is close to zero," said Bob Parker, senior advisor at the International Capital Markets Association.
Concrete numbers are driving market movement. But there's an undercurrent of fear that can perhaps run contrary to what some of those numbers are saying.