Bank of Korea, China inflation, Wall Street tech stocks, bitcoin

Oxford Economics told CNBC that the central bank is likely to keep its benchmark rate at its current 3.5% as core inflation appears to be stable.

“I think the authorities think they can achieve a slowdown in inflation with the current setup,” said Son Eun-jung of Oxford Economics.

She added that a rate cut “looks premature” for the central bank, noting that weakening domestic demand has led to lower inflation.

Oxford Economics expects the central bank to cut the benchmark rate by the first quarter of next year, she said.

South Korea’s inflation rate was 4.2% compared to a year ago, according to the latest economic data released.

— Lee Ji-hye

Warren Buffett told Nikkei he plans to increase his stake in Japanese stocks.

and Nikkei interviewBuffett said he was considering additional investments to increase his holdings in five of Japan’s major trading companies, referring to his 7.4% stake in Itochu.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway boosted its stake in Japan’s largest trading house by at least a percentage point to more than 6%, according to filings last November.

Mitsubishi Corp shares rose 2.33% in Japan’s morning trading, with Mitsui & Co. up 2.56%, Itochu’s up 2.33% and Marubeni’s up 2.97%. Sumitomo Corporation also rose 2.41%.

— Lee Ji-hye

Shares of Hong Kong-listed Alibaba rose 3.12% in Tuesday trading after the Chinese tech giant’s cloud computing subsidiary debuted its ChatGPT-style product Tongyi Qianwen.

Alibaba Cloud said in a statement that Tongyi Qianwen will be rolled out to all Alibaba products from e-commerce to search in the near future. Alibaba has not disclosed a timeline.

Daniel Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group and CEO of Alibaba Cloud, said: Intelligence, in a statement.

Alibaba is the latest Chinese company to announce a ChatGPT clone, following Baidu’s Ernie Bot in March. Baidu continued to record losses of over 4% on him.

— Sheila Chen

Inflation in China fell short of expectations at 0.7% in March, beating expectations of a 1% rise in the CPI from a year ago.

The producer price index also fell 2.5% year-on-year after falling 1.4% in the previous month, in line with Reuters forecasts.

— Lee Ji-hye

Cryptocurrencies surged Tuesday morning in Asia, with Bitcoin gaining more than 7% over the past 24 hours to $30,190. coin metrics.

Bitcoin held its highest level since surpassing $30,000 in June last year.

Ether also rose more than 3.78% to $1,923.59, breaking below $2,000.

The Bank of Korea kept rates unchanged at 3.5%, as expected.

South Korean won rose slightly after moving to 1319.68 against the US dollar.

With the US Federal Reserve (Fed) seen to maintain its hawkish stance, South Korea, along with the likes of Australia and India, has paused its tightening cycle in a global inflation environment. I’m here.

Oil prices edged higher in Asian morning trading as traders continue to digest last week’s OPEC production cuts and the possibility of further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

Investors are waiting for Wednesday’s key US inflation data to inform the Fed’s next move.

Brent crude futures rose 0.21% to $84.36 a barrel and US West Texas Central futures rose 0.26% to $79.95 a barrel.

Vivek Dahl of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia said Russia remained “an important country to watch” in understanding the extent of the disruption in oil markets.

– Li Yingxiang

Shares of Australian miner Newcrest Mining rose after it announced it had received a sweet offer from US rival Newmont.

Nucrest is up more than 6% after the company announced its latest offer from Newmont.

The revised takeover offer reflects a 16% increase from the original offer, giving Newcrest an implied equity value of A$29.4 billion ($19.5 billion) and an enterprise value of A$32 billion ($21.3 billion) It is included.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda emphasized at his inaugural press conference that the central bank will maintain its unconventional monetary policy. Nikkei report.

He said it was “appropriate” to maintain the central bank’s current yield curve restraint policy and negative interest rate policy given the current economic, financial and price conditions, Nikkei said.

He added that the BOJ may need to normalize policy if it can hit its 2% inflation target, adding that it is difficult to set a timeline for when the Japanese economy will reach its target. .

Japan’s core consumer price index rose to 3.1% y/y in Mar, following a downward trajectory from a 4.2% acceleration in the previous month.

In early trading on Tuesday, the Japanese yen rose 0.2% against the US dollar to 133.29.

— Lee Ji-hye

The Bank of Korea is expected to keep its benchmark rate unchanged at 3.5% again in its monetary policy decision on Tuesday, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

DBS is an outlier in the survey, expecting the BOK to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.75%.

At its final meeting in February, the central bank of Korea suspended its tightening cycle after raising interest rates seven times in a row since March 2022.

A Reuters poll expects the central bank to begin cutting interest rates by up to 50 basis points in the first quarter of 2024, with further cuts in the third and fourth quarters of next year.

— Lee Ji-hye

Electric car giant Tesla’s stock is up more than 70% this year after falling 65% in 2022, its biggest annual decline ever.

Is it time to buy stocks? Two investors face off on CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” Wednesday.

Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Xavier Ong

Goldman Sachs has revisited several stock ratings, sticking with some of them and upgrading others in light of recent volatility.

Some of these stocks have been on Wall Street banks’ confidence buy lists, raising some of their price targets and leading to big gains.

Below are five of those stocks, three of which are on Goldman’s confidence buy list.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Tan Weizhen

Samsung’s move to cut memory chip production could spur a faster-than-expected recovery in the broader memory chip market, according to Wall Street.

In addition to preliminary results showing a 96% decline in quarterly earnings, the company said Friday it plans to cut production of two types of memory to address supply and demand mismatches.

Shares of Micron Technology and Western Digital rose more than 8%, with investors seeing the move as potentially positive for competitors. Citi analyst Christopher Danely called the news “extremely positive” for the dynamic random access memory industry.

Find out why so many on Wall Street are applauding the move.

— Samantha Soobin

Stocks broke through the worst levels in afternoon trading. As of 2:13 pm ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 46 points, or 0.14%. The S&P 500 is down 0.11% for him and the Nasdaq Composite is down 0.28% for him.

At the session low, the Dow fell 141.86 points (0.42%). The S&P 500 dropped him 0.79% and the Nasdaq dropped him 1.35%.

— Sara Min

Shares of movie theater chains AMC Entertainment Holdings, Cinemark Holdings and IMAX surged in midday trading Monday following the successful release of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie.”

Since its April 5 release, the film has grossed over $204 million in the United States. data From Box Office Mojo. This film is distributed by Universal Pictures.

AMC shares were up more than 6% and Cinemark shares were up more than 5%. IMAX stock added 1.9%.

Disclaimer: Both Universal Pictures and CNBC are owned by NBCUniversal.

— Sara Min