On October 10th local time, the three major U.S. stock indices closed slightly lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 0.14%, the Nasdaq Composite down by 0.15%, and the S&P 500 index down by 0.21%.

Popular tech stocks experienced mixed performances, with Nvidia gaining over 1%, Meta dropping over 1%, and Apple and Tesla both falling by less than 1%. The precious metals, metals and mining, and oil and gas sectors led the gains, with Gold Resources surging by over 8%, Pan American Silver jumping by over 5%, and Cordero Mining, American Gold Company, and Century Aluminum all rising by over 3%. British Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum, and Imperial Oil all increased by over 1%. Solar energy and cryptocurrency stocks declined, with First Solar dropping by over 9%, Sunrun by over 6%, Canaan Technology by over 3%, and Coinbase by over 1%.

In the AI computing power sector, AMD held an artificial intelligence-themed press conference on October 10th, introducing a range of new products, including the MI325X computing chip. However, despite the lackluster market interest, AMD's stock price also took a noticeable dive. According to official documents, the MI325, which has parameter advantages over the H200, can provide 1.3 times the peak theoretical FP16 (16-bit floating-point) and FP8 computing performance.

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Most industry analyses believe that Nvidia's market share in the AI chip market can reach over 90%, which is also the reason why the chip leader can enjoy a gross margin of 75%. Based on the same considerations, the difference in stock performance between the two companies is also significant—after today's press conference, AMD's (red line) year-to-date gain narrowed back to within 20%, while Nvidia's (green line) gain approached 180%.

Despite launching new products that claim to outperform Nvidia's similar artificial intelligence (AI) chips in inference performance, AMD's stock price still ended with a significant drop. The stock price decline indicates that investors are still waiting for AMD's AI business to bring returns. Its commentary states that although AMD has released new chips, the company's recent financial outlook has not changed significantly. Like Nvidia, AMD also promises to launch new AI accelerators every year, accelerating the pace of innovation. However, AMD has a long way to go to catch up with Nvidia, and Wall Street has been waiting for signs of AMD making progress in catching up with Nvidia. This progress may only be seen after AMD's next financial report is released, which is expected to be around the end of this month when AMD releases its financial report for the third quarter of this year.

As of the close, AMD fell by 4%, trading at $164.18, with a market capitalization of $265.72 billion.

Popular Chinese concept stocks experienced mixed performances, with the NASDAQ Golden Dragon China Index up by 0.30%. Weibo, Tencent Music, and Alibaba all rose by over 1%, while XPeng Motors, JD.com, Baidu, and Pinduoduo all saw slight increases. iQIYI fell by over 4%, Li Auto and Futu Holdings both dropped by over 3%, Bilibili fell by over 2%, and Full Truck Alliance, NetEase, and NIO all declined by over 1%, with VIPShop slightly down.

The FTSE China A50 Index futures closed up by 0.66% during the night session, at 13,975 points.

COMEX gold futures closed up by 0.81%, at $2,647.3 per ounce; COMEX silver futures closed up by 2.1%, at $31.375 per ounce.

WTI crude oil futures settled up by 3.56%, at $75.85 per barrel. Brent crude oil futures settled up by 3.68%, at $79.40 per barrel.Image source: Visual China - VCG41N1312224956

According to CCTV News, on October 10th local time, data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.2% month-on-month in September, and grew by 2.4% year-on-year before seasonal adjustment.

In that month, after excluding the more volatile prices of food and energy, the core CPI increased by 0.3% month-on-month, and grew by 3.3% year-on-year before seasonal adjustment.

Several senior officials of the Federal Reserve spoke after the release of the higher-than-expected CPI report. Most of them believe that although U.S. inflation has not yet reached 2%, they are confident that inflation is moving in the right direction and are not too worried about the September CPI inflation report being higher than expected. However, Atlanta Fed Chairman Bostic, who is not considered a hawk, said that based on the recent mixed data, he is absolutely open to the idea of pausing rate cuts in November.

Federal Reserve's Bostic stated that he is open to the possibility of not cutting rates in November; the latest inflation and labor market data give the Federal Reserve the ability to remain patient; if economic data supports it, then it would be appropriate for the Federal Reserve to take no action at some meeting.

Bostic estimates that the so-called neutral interest rate, which neither stimulates nor slows economic growth, is between 3% and 3.5%, and he expects the interest rate to approach this level next year. "It's a journey towards neutrality, with the nuances being that you move 25 basis points here and 50 basis points there, and I don't think these are very important."

The third-ranking Federal Reserve official, New York Fed Chairman Williams, said that the inflation rate has not yet reached the 2% target, but he is confident that inflation is moving in the right direction. Despite some small setbacks, the overall downward trend of U.S. inflation remains quite solid. The cooling of inflation is widespread, and various labor market indicators suggest that labor is unlikely to be a source of price pressure.

Chicago Fed Chairman Goolsbee stated that the latest U.S. inflation data is basically in line with expectations. The overall trend shows that the level of inflation has significantly decreased. He is not too worried about the September CPI inflation report being higher than expected.

Richmond Fed Chairman Barkin stated that the inflation rate is changing in the right direction. The level of inflation has significantly decreased, but it is not yet time to declare victory in the fight against inflation. There is growing confidence that inflation is under control.