Overnight US stocks | The S&P 500 Index hit a new low for the year, with Brent oil closing above $100 for the second consecutive day. Adobe (ADBE.US) fell 7.5%.

On Friday, the three major indexes opened higher and closed lower, with the S&P 500 hitting a new low for the year and recording three consecutive weeks of decline for the first time in a year. Trump announced that the US military will carry out "intense airstrikes" against Iran next week. This week, the S&P 500 fell by 1.6%, the Nasdaq fell by 1.26%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.98%. The S&P 500 set a record for the longest weekly decline since March 2025. [US Stocks] At the close, the Dow Jones fell by 119.38 points, a decrease of 0.26%, to 46,558.47 points; the Nasdaq fell by 206.62 points, a decrease of 0.93%, to 22,105.36 points; the S&P 500 fell by 40.43 points, a decrease of 0.61%, to 6,632.19 points. Some tech stocks softened, with Adobe (ADBE.US) falling by 7.5%, Meta Platforms (META.US) falling by 3.8%, and Broadcom Inc. (AVGO.US) falling by 4.1%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index closed up by 0.75%. [European Stocks] The German DAX30 index fell by 128.24 points, a decrease of 0.54%, to 23,444.20 points; the UK FTSE 100 index fell by 39.73 points, a decrease of 0.39%, to 10,265.42 points; the French CAC40 index fell by 72.91 points, a decrease of 0.91%, to 7,911.53 points; the Euro Stoxx 50 index fell by 30.79 points, a decrease of 0.54%, to 5,718.10 points; the Spanish IBEX35 index fell by 73.58 points, a decrease of 0.43%, to 17,066.32 points; the Italian FTSE MIB index fell by 129.68 points, a decrease of 0.29%, to 44,326.50 points. [Asian Stocks] The Nikkei 225 index fell by 1.16%, the South Korean KOSPI index fell by 1.72%, and the Indonesian Jakarta Composite Index fell by 3.05%. [Cryptocurrencies] Bitcoin rose by 1.86% to $71,469.41, and Ethereum rose by 2.4% to $2,114.81. [Oil] Brent crude futures rose by 2.67%, or $2.68, to close at $103.14 per barrel. WTI crude oil rose by 3.11%, or $2.98, to close at $98.71 per barrel. Brent crude oil futures prices closed above $100 a barrel for the second consecutive trading day, reaching their highest level in over three years. Meanwhile, the Middle East conflict continues to spread, and world leaders are working to address the largest impact on the oil market in history. Brent crude oil futures closed at $103.14 per barrel, while US crude futures closed near $99 per barrel, the highest since July 2022. Analysts and traders say that if Brent crude oil futures prices remain above the key psychological level of $100 per barrel, the pressure may increase on US President Trump to end the war with Iran. The impact of rising oil prices is already beginning to affect consumers in many parts of the world. [US Dollar Index] The US dollar index returned to the 100 mark for the first time since November last year. Market volatility has made the US dollar a safe-haven asset, with the euro-to-dollar exchange rate approaching its lowest level since November 2025, and the yen rate at a level that has traders cautious about possible interventions by the Japanese authorities. [Metals] Precious metals fell, with spot gold closing down by 1.2% at $5,018.96, and spot silver closing down by 3.89% at $80.57. [Macro News] Trump says the US military will launch "intense airstrikes" against Iran next week and refuses to discuss the "seizure of islands." President Trump said the US military will carry out "intense airstrikes" against Iran next week and declined to discuss whether the US intends to occupy Iran's oil export island of Harc Island. In an interview on the 13th, Trump refused to answer related questions, saying that seizing Iran's Harc Island was "not a priority." Trump reiterated in the interview that if necessary, the US military will escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump relaxes sanctions on Venezuelan oil and fertilizer to ease US inflation pressure. Due to the Iran war, prices of Venezuelan fertilizer and oil have risen, causing the US Treasury Department to simplify the process for US companies and farmers to purchase Venezuelan fertilizer and oil. The conflict in Iran has disrupted oil tanker transport in the Persian Gulf, leading to a surge in oil and fertilizer prices. This could lead to inflation and increase food prices in the US. US Treasury Secretary Benson hopes to increase US oil supply and reduce oil prices by easing sanctions on oil-rich Venezuela. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has taken separate actions to authorize US companies and farmers to purchase and import Venezuelan petrochemical products, such as fertilizers and oil; provide goods, services, or technical support to Venezuela's power and petrochemical industry; negotiate new contracts for the development of Venezuela's oil and natural gas supply, or for the modernization and improvement of its power grid to help increase oil production. The US Justice Department will appeal the ruling on the Powell case, potentially delaying the appointment of Walsh. Following a judge's dismissal of a subpoena issued to the Fed, US federal attorney Piro vowed to continue investigating Fed chairman Powell, which could delay the appointment of Powell's successor, Kevin Walsh, as Powell's term ends in May. US District Judge James Bosberg said the government failed to provide any evidence to justify their subpoena, which was related to the renovation of the Fed headquarters building and Powell's comments on the project. Piro said, "This process has been arbitrarily disrupted by a radical judge. The process should have proceeded as usual, but it did not. It's just shameful." Senate Banking Committee member Tillis warned that as long as the Justice Department's investigation of Powell continues, he will block any nomination for Fed chairman. "This ruling confirms how weak and baseless the criminal investigation into Fed Chairman Powell is, it is simply a failure attack on the Fed's independence," Tillis said. "An appeal will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Walsh as the next Fed chairman." US job openings increase in January, while layoffs decrease. Job openings in the US increased and layoffs decreased in January, indicating an improvement in demand for labor before recent signs of weakness in the labor market. Data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday showed that job openings increased from 6.55 million in December to 6.95 million in January, higher than market expectations. The report also revised the annual vacancy data, lowering the vacancy data for most of 2025. Although job openings improved slightly in January, they did not significantly more hiring, consistent with the still relatively weak labor market conditions. Recent data shows a decline in non-farm payrolls and an increase in the unemployment rate in February, as well as a reduction in hiring plans by small businesses, shaking the previous belief that the labor market was stabilizing. The increase in job openings comes from various industries, including finance and insurance, healthcare and social assistance, retail trade, and accommodation and food services. JPMorgan Chase: Risk appetite of US retail investors is cooling. With the escalation of the situation in the Middle East and increased concerns about inflation, US retail investors are reducing their strong support for the stock market, and risk appetite is cooling. A team led by strategist Arun Jain at JPMorgan Chase stated that the weekly stock purchases of retail investors have decreased by about 30%. The team wrote in a report, "This year has seen signs of sustained weakness from retail investors for the first time. Monday became the largest day of net selling of individual stocks in the past month, but buying rebounded to net inflows on Tuesday and Wednesday, but remained below the year-to-date average." Retail funds flowing into the market as of Wednesday's five trading days fell to $6.7 billion, below the 12-month average of $7.1 billion. Funds flowing into ETFs decreased by 22% to $6.3 billion. US consumer spending in January exceeded expectations. US consumer spending in January slightly exceeded expectations, coupled with continued strong core inflation and the prolonged conflict in the Middle East, economists are further convinced that the Fed is unlikely to resume rate cuts in the short term. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce said on Friday that consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, increased by 0.4% in January, the same as the increase in the previous month. The US and Israel's war against Iran has pushed up oil prices, potentially impacting consumer spending. The war has also led to stock market volatility, with economists warning that the shrinking wealth of high-income households may force some families to cut spending. Low-income households have already reduced spending due to higher prices caused by tariffs on imports. Economists expect that this drag will have an impact on the economy in the second quarter. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) rose by 0.3% in January, compared to a 0.4% rise in December. Over the 12 months to January, the PCE inflation rate was 2.8%, down from 2.9% in December. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core PCE price index rose by 0.4%, the same as the increase in December. Core PCE rose by 3.1% year-on-year, compared to 3.0% in December. [Stock News] Tesla, Inc. CEO Musk once again dismisses multiple founders of xAI AI programming project encountered setbacks. According to reports, Musk launched a new round of layoffs due to poor performance of the xAI programming product, dismissing multiple co-founders, and reviewing xAI with personnel transferred from SpaceX and Tesla, Inc. and firing some underperforming employees. One of the core reasons is the poor quality of its model training data, with the programming product falling far behind similar products from Anthropic and OpenAI. This time, founders Daizi Hang and Zhang Guodong have resigned, leaving only two out of the 11 co-founders who co-founded in 2023 still in office; the project leader appointed by Musk for the "Giant Hard" project also left after only 16 days on the job, and the AI software leader at Tesla, Inc. has taken over the project, Tesla, Inc. also plans to jointly develop "Digital Transformers" with xAI. Musk has built a super-sized data center for xAI and has support from Beijing Vastdata Technology on social media platform X, but the frequent changes in personnel at the company have undermined morale, with many researchers leaving either due to harsh working conditions or being poached, and the position vacancies are so large that candidates rejected previously need to be contacted again, for which Musk has also apologized. Cerebras Systems partners with Amazon.com, Inc. to provide Cerebras AI chips on Amazon.com, Inc.'s cloud service. Amazon.com, Inc. and Cerebras Systems announced an agreement on Friday to integrate their computing chips into a new service to accelerate AI services such as Siasun Robot & Automation and programming tools. The $23.1 billion Cerebras is a chip startup that specializes in AI chips that do not rely on expensive high-bandwidth memory, competing with NVIDIA Corporation, and earlier this year signed a $10 billion chip supply agreement with OpenAI. Under the agreement, Cerebras chips will be deployed in Amazon.com, Inc.'s cloud technology (AWS) data centers and will collaborate with Amazon.com, Inc.'s custom Trainium3 AI chips via Amazon.com, Inc.'s custom Network-1 Technologies, Inc. Users can easily use Cerebras chips. The two sides did not disclose the size of the transaction. The collaboration focuses on the AI "inference" process, splitting tasks into "pre-fill" (handled by the Trainium3 chip, converting user requests into language that AI can recognize) and "decoding" (handled by the Cerebras chip, outputting the desired answers for users), using a "divide and conquer" strategy. This strategy is similar to the solution that NVIDIA Corporation is expected to announce next week (NVIDIA Corporation plans to combine its own GPUs with the acquired Groq chips).