Japan’s Nikkei tops 33,000 points; Asian markets rise ahead of central bank meeting

Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit 33,000 for the first time since July 1990, as Japanese stocks broke through a key psychological level following their bull run.

Battery maker GS Yuasa rose 5.97%, leading the index’s gainers, and chipmaker Renesas Electronics climbed 5.88%.

SoftBank Group rose 5.59% and Toyota Motor rose more than 5%, while Mazda added 4.12%.

Michael Yoshigami, founder of Destination Wealth Management, says technology companies in particular are “starting to step up in terms of manufacturing in India.”

– Lee Ying Shan

Although some truckers and port customers are experiencing delays, cargo is moving “very smoothly,” says Jean Seroka, the port’s executive director.

– Audrey Vaughan

Consumer Price Index of India It posted a year-on-year gain of 4.25% in May, marking its slowest inflation rate since January 2021.

That was lower than April’s figure of 4.7% and below the 4.42% economists had expected.

Clothing and footwear prices rose the highest in May by 6.64%, followed by house prices by 4.84%, government data showed.

– Lim Hui Jee

Analysts have singled out a group of companies that will benefit from longer interest rates: those that are cash-rich and have strong balance sheets.

While the US Federal Reserve is expected to pause hikes this week, there are fears it will resume them later. That’s because inflation is sticking to what it looks like and the labor market is tight.

CNBC Pro screened the S&P 500 and MSCI World Indices, looking for such cash-rich stocks. One showed on the screen nearly 80% potential upside, and two semiconductor stocks — now popular among investors — appeared.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Weissen Don

Bain Capital’s Jonathan Zhu discusses the company’s offer to take the Chinese data center operator private in a deal valued at nearly $3 billion.

– Sheila Chiang

According to Morgan Stanley, Nvidia, which dominates the artificial intelligence computing market, may face increasing competition from custom chip designers in the future.

“In our view, budget costs and energy requirements are the two main limitations for future AI computing,” Morgan Stanley analysts led by Charlie Chan told clients on June 11.

“Therefore, we expect increasingly power-efficient and low-cost AI custom chip designs, matching or surpassing the development of NVIDIA and AMD’s general-purpose GPUs.”

The investment bank is “overweight” on five global stocks that could benefit from the trend.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Ganesh Rao

Lee Woon Shiu, head of DBS Bank’s wealth planning group, says, “The family office proposition … is the most significant game changer to come out of Singapore in the past five years in wealth management.”

– Lim Hui Gee

Stocks rose on Monday as investors added to hopes that the central bank could avoid raising interest rates at this week’s policy meeting.

The S&P 500 rose 0.93% to 4,338.93, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.53% to 13,461.92. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 189.55 points, or 0.56%, to close at 34,066.33.

With May’s consumer price index due out on Tuesday, investors will look to new inflation data this week.

– Brian Evans

It was a relatively quiet day on Wall Street as investors eyed the Federal Reserve meeting set for mid-week.

More than 31.5 million shares of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, the tracker of the broader S&P 500 index, changed hands as of 2 pm ET with two hours left in the trading day. On an average full day over the past 30 sessions, around 80.6 million shares were traded.

That low number underscores the typical calm period that precedes a storm. Investors will look for any changes in the path of interest rate hikes and comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell around the state of the economy and future monetary policy at Wednesday’s announcement and press conference.

Before that, Tuesday’s consumer price index data will be watched for its correlation with inflation.

– Alex Haring

According to Nomura, tailwinds from delivery improvements could be moderated by increased competition for electric vehicle maker Neo.

Analyst Frank Fan maintained neutral coverage on the China-based automaker’s stock. His $7.50 price target suggests the U.S.-listed stock could fall about 3% over the next year from where it closed Friday’s session.

“We believe the company is on track to improve deliveries in 2H23F,” Fan said in a note to clients on Sunday, also calling first-quarter deliveries “low.” “That said, we expect NIO’s implied upside to be driven by intense competition and limited market share improvement in 2023F, based on the company’s 2023 guidance for deliveries and the overall growth outlook for the EV industry.”

The fan price target suggests further downside for the stock, which is already down more than 14% this year.

On Monday, the company cut prices for new buyers and ended free battery replacements, despite management saying earlier this year that it would not enter an electric vehicle “price war.” US stocks rose more than 7% in Monday’s session.