Chip stocks surge: ARM up 16%, gold recovers to $4,500, Chinese concept stocks shine: JD.com up 8%

Ask AI · Is the surge in gold reflecting rising geopolitical risk?

*U.S. stocks rebound across the board, with the Dow up more than 300 points;

*U.S. Treasury yields on intermediate-to-long maturities fall back, with the 10-year Treasury note nearing 4.30%;

*U.S. mortgage rates rise for the third consecutive week, and last week’s refinancing applications fell 14.6%.

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks continued to extend gains. Hopes that the conflict in the Middle East may ease reduced investors’ concerns about a prolonged interruption to energy supplies. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 305.43 points, up 0.66%, to 46,429.49. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.77% to 21,929.83. The S&P 500 rose 0.54% to 6,591.90.

【Hot Stock Performance】

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.2%. Arm announced a new artificial intelligence data center chip, which is expected to bring in billions of dollars in revenue, and its share price surged 16.38%. Among other chip stocks, AMD rose 7.36%, Intel rose 7.08%, Nvidia rose 1.99%, while Qualcomm and TSMC rose 1.3%.

Big-name tech stocks saw more gains than losses: Amazon rose 2.16%, Tesla rose 0.76%, Apple and Meta rose more than 0.3%, and Microsoft fell nearly 0.5%.

The storage sector weakened. Western Digital fell 1.63%, Seagate fell 2.6%, and Micron Technology and SanDisk fell more than 3%. In terms of news, Google launched a new memory-compression technology called TurboQuant, which can compress key-value caching for large language models to 3 bits, delivering 6x memory reduction and up to 8x faster performance—raising market concerns about the outlook for storage demand.

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index rose 1.86%. JD.com rose 8.30%, PDD rose 4.61%, Alibaba rose 3.50%, Baidu rose 2.73%, and NetEase rose 0.82%.

Merck & Co. rose 2.6%. The company agreed to acquire an oncology drug company, Turns Pharma, with an equity value of about $6.7 billion. This pharma giant aims to expand its line of products for blood disorders.

Homebuilder KB Home fell 1.5%. The company lowered its full-year home sales outlook due to affordability issues for homebuyers, as well as a recent escalation in geopolitical tensions, and its results for the first fiscal quarter came in below expectations.

【Market Overview】

Outside markets continue to focus on developments in the Middle East situation. According to China Central Television (CCTV) News, the U.S. government submitted to Iran via Pakistan a ceasefire-ending proposal with 15 conditions, covering the nuclear program, missile capabilities, and regional issues. The U.S. side is considering pushing for a one-month ceasefire so that further negotiations can be conducted on the relevant terms.

In a report, ING said: “Although uncertainty in the oil market has eased somewhat, uncertainty remains very high. Tehran has fired a new round of missiles at Israel, and there are almost no signs of compromise. At the same time, Iran has reiterated that foreign ships may pass through the Strait of Hormuz only if they comply with Iran’s rules and do not support aggressive acts.”

The spike in oil prices driven by the conflict between the U.S. and Iran has reignited inflation concerns, making central banks’ rate outlooks more complex. The CME Group FedWatch tool shows that the market is not pricing any rate cuts by the Fed this year, whereas before the outbreak of the conflict, the market had expected two rate cuts.

In a report, JPMorgan Chase’s trading division said: “Even though it is still unclear whose decision will stop Iran’s military actions and what conditions would satisfy Israel’s interests, the market seems inclined to continue the rebound from here. In addition, it is also not yet clear whether Iran will give up the previously proposed demands—including security guarantees to avoid future attacks and compensation for losses caused by this conflict.”

Gene Goldman, Chief Investment Officer at Cetera, said: “The market feels optimistic that the proposals and counterproposals from both sides will pave the way for more negotiations.” Goldman said that before it becomes clear when the war might end, given the impact of high oil prices on inflation, he expects market volatility to remain elevated.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that if, after the conflict ends, Iran “still poses a threat,” oil prices could rise to $150 per barrel and trigger a “global economic recession.”

U.S. Treasury yields are lower. The benchmark 10-year Treasury fell 7.6 basis points to 4.32%. The 2-year Treasury, which is closely tied to rate expectations, fell 6.1 basis points to 3.88%.

In economic data, U.S. February import prices rose 1.3% month over month, the biggest increase since March 2022. On a year-over-year basis, imports rose 1.3%, the largest year-over-year increase since February 2025. Excluding fuel and food, core import prices jumped 1.2% month over month. In January, the core import price increase was 0.7% month over month, and core import prices surged 3.0% year over year,

U.S. mortgage rates have risen for the third consecutive week, pushing housing financing costs to the highest level since October last year and dealing a blow to home-purchase and refinancing activity. According to data released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), in the week ending March 20, the contract interest rate for 30-year mortgages increased by 13 basis points to 6.43%. As a result, the mortgage application index for home purchases fell 5.4% last week, the largest decline since January, and refinancing applications fell 14.6%.

【Performance in Commodities】

International oil prices fell. New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) light sweet crude oil futures for May delivery dropped $2.03 to settle at $90.32 per barrel, a decline of 2.2%. London Brent crude oil futures for May delivery fell $2.27 to $102.22 per barrel, down 2.17%.

The precious metals market surged strongly. As of the time of this report, COMEX gold futures for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 2.2%, trading near $4,530 per ounce. COMEX silver futures rose 2.6% to $70.41 per ounce.

(This article is from First Financial.)