Before the bell: China up

Stock markets inundated by green Chinese tsunami. Visa accused of monopoly and in Menlo Park starts Meta Connect today. 

An average European share rose 1.1% yesterday while in Brussels the Bel20 (+0.3%) lagged. Shares like Prosus (+4.6%), L’Oréal (+3.6%) and LVMH (+4.1%) were able to benefit from China’s stimulus measures. In the United States, investors remained positive yesterday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq climbed 0.6%. There too, China-sensitive stocks such as Caterpillar (+4%) and Estée Lauder (+6.1%) surfed effortlessly higher. Several Chinese companies listed in the US also popped ahead. For example, media group Bilibili (+17%), e-commerce player Alibaba (+7.9%) and carmakers NIO (+11.7%) and BYD (+6.1%) colored solid green.

This morning the fun is not over in Asia where the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong is already up 2%. In Japan, the Topix remains unchanged. In the Netherlands we will soon get the results of Exor and in the US it is Micron’s turn to have its books looked at.

Monopoly

The U.S. competition watchdog is taking payment services company Visa to court. According to the antitrust authority, Visa would have a monopoly in the U.S. debit card market. The company would have abused its dominant position to fire up the competition. This would keep debit transaction fees high, which is negative for the many businesses and consumers who depend on the system for their payments every day. Visa would also thwart the development of innovative new payment technologies, according to the watchdog. Visa’s shares took a 5.5% hit yesterday, although analysts are confident the firm will have plenty of competition from the likes of Mastercard (-2%).

Connect

It’s that time again. Meta kicks off its annual Connect conference today. That’s an event where developers and technology enthusiasts get their money’s worth. Tonight at 7 p.m. our time, Mark Zuckerberg will begin his keynote. That presentation will be live via Facebook. The Meta ceo is expected to announce new products and reveal the company’s vision for artificial intelligence. Mark Zuckerberg is one of the big believers in AI. Two months ago, he already announced a new version of Meta’s Llama AI model. Meta’s stock is already up 63% since January this year. We are curious to see if talk of AI can further fuel the share price.

Did you know…

the US state of California has filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil? According to California, as one of the largest manufacturers of petroleum products, the company allegedly lied for years about the recyclability of plastics.

This article was translated from Dutch and was originally published on Spaarvarkens.be.