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

Storage sector weakens, Micron Technology and SanDisk fall more than 3%

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

Long-term U.S. Treasury yields fall back, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury heads toward 4.30%;

U.S. mortgage rates rise for the third straight week, and last week refinancing applications fell 14.6%.

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks continued their uptrend. Hopes for easing Middle East conflict alleviated some investors’ worries about the long-term disruption of energy supply. 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, expected to bring in billions of dollars in revenue, and its stock surged 16.38%. For other chip stocks, AMD rose 7.36%, Intel rose 7.08%, Nvidia rose 1.99%, while Qualcomm and TSMC rose 1.3%.

Among star technology stocks, most rose rather than fell: Amazon rose 2.16%, Tesla rose 0.76%, Apple and Meta rose by more than 0.3%, and Microsoft fell by nearly 0.5%.

With the storage sector weakening, Western Digital fell 1.63%, Seagate fell 2.6%, and Micron Technology and SanDisk fell more than 3%. On the news front, Google launched a new memory compression technology, TurboQuant, which can compress large language model key-value caches to 3 bits, enabling a 6x reduction in memory and up to an 8x speedup—sparking market concerns about the outlook for storage demand.

The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index rose 1.86%, JD.com rose 8.30%, Pinduoduo 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 the oncology drug company Turning Pharma, with an equity value of about $6.7 billion. This pharma giant aims to expand its portfolio of blood disease products.

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

【Market Overview】

The outside world continues to watch developments in the Middle East situation. According to CCTV News, the U.S. government submitted a conflict-ending proposal to Iran through Pakistan that includes 15 conditions, covering nuclear programs, missile capabilities, and regional issues. The U.S. side is considering pushing for a month-long ceasefire in order to carry out further negotiations on the relevant terms.

ING Group, in a report, said: “Although oil markets have seen initial relief, uncertainty remains high. Tehran launched a new round of missiles at Israel, with almost no signs of compromise; at the same time, Iran reiterated that foreign vessels can pass through the Strait of Hormuz only if they comply with Iran’s regulations and do not support acts of aggression.”

The surge in oil prices driven by the conflict between the U.S. and Iran has reignited inflation concerns, making interest-rate outlooks for central banks more complicated. The CME FedWatch Tool indicates that, at present, the market is not pricing in any rate cuts by the Fed this year; before the outbreak of the conflict, the market had expected two rate cuts.

In a report, JPMorgan’s trading division said: “Although it is still unclear who in Iran would call a halt to military actions, and what conditions would satisfy Israel’s interests, the market seems inclined to continue rebounding from here. In addition, it is also not clear whether Iran would give up its previously put-forward demands—including security assurances to prevent future attacks, and compensation for losses caused by the conflict.”

Gene Goldman, Chief Investment Officer at Cetera, said: “The market feels optimistic that the parties’ proposals and counterproposals will pave the way for more negotiations. Goldman added that until it becomes clear when the war might end, given the impact of high oil prices on inflation, volatility is expected to remain elevated.”

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

U.S. Treasury yields declined. The benchmark 10-year Treasury fell 7.6 basis points to 4.32%, and the 2-year Treasury, closely tied to interest-rate expectations, dropped 6.1 basis points to 3.88%.

On economic data: U.S. February import prices rose 1.3% month over month, the largest increase since March 2022. On a year-over-year basis, they 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 prices rose 0.7% month over month, and surged 3.0% year over year,

U.S. mortgage rates rose for the third straight week, pushing housing financing costs to their highest level since October last year, dealing a blow to home buying and refinancing activity. According to data released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), for the week ending March 20, the contract interest rate for a 30-year mortgage rose 13 basis points to 6.43%. Affected by this, the mortgage application index for home purchases fell 5.4% last week, the largest decline since January, and refinancing applications dropped 14.6%.

【Commodities Performance】

International oil prices fell. Light crude oil futures for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) fell $2.03 to close at $90.32 per barrel, down 2.2%. May-delivery London Brent crude oil futures fell $2.27 to close at $102.22 per barrel, down 2.17%.

Gold and other precious metals rose sharply. As of the time of writing, COMEX gold futures for May delivery on the NYMEX rose 2.2%, trading near $4,530 per ounce; COMEX silver futures rose 2.6% to $70.41 per ounce.

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