Hong Kong fell 2%, leading losses in Asia as investors await earnings from big tech companies

Hyundai Motor Company, South Korean automaker reported 92% A year-over-year increase in net profit for the first quarter of this year, partially supported by higher SUV sales.

Net profit was 3.42 trillion won ($2.56 billion), compared to 1.78 trillion won in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue increased 24.7% year over year, rising from 30.3 trillion won to 37.78 trillion won.

Hyundai Motor shares closed up 4.74% on Tuesday.

South Korean automaker Hyundai plans to set up joint project to make electric vehicle battery cells in the United States

Hyundai will partner with SK On, a battery unit of SK Innovation, to construct an EV battery cell plant in Georgia, near the group’s US production facilities.

The total investment amount is about $5 billion, in which Hyundai and SK each own a 50% stake.

The new factory is expected to start manufacturing battery cells in the second half of 2025 with an annual production capacity of 35 GWh, which is enough to support the production of 300,000 electric vehicles.

These battery packs will be used in production Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis EVs.

– Lim Hwi Ji

Chinese tech giant ByteDance is pushing another app called Lemon8 as leading short video app TikTok faces a possible ban in the US

“It’s definitely interesting timing,” Lindsey Gorman, senior fellow for emerging technology at the German Marshall Fund, told CNBC. “ByteDance seems to be pushing Lemon8 as a potential alternative to TikTok.”

Glenn Gerstil, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Lemon8 uses similar recommendation algorithms as TikTok which “would make both of those apps very popular because they feed you what you want to see and so on.”

“It might give them a fallback in case something goes wrong on TikTok but I don’t see it generating a solution for ByteDance in that regard,” Gerstil said.

Read the full story here.

– Sheila Chiang

BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda stressed the need to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy in the country “for now,” but said the Bank of Japan was ready to raise interest rates if wage growth and inflation accelerate faster than expected, According to a Reuters report.

Speaking to the Japanese parliament, Ueda said it was “appropriate to maintain monetary easing” in light of current economic, price and financial developments.

His comments come ahead of the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting later this week, which will be the first meeting he’s chaired since taking office earlier this month.

Reuters, Lim Hui Jie

General Motors and Samsung SDI will announce early Tuesday that they plan to jointly build an electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in the United States, Reuters reports.

Citing sources, Reuters said the Detroit-based company’s reported joint venture with Samsung is an effort to diversify its battery supply to catch up with Tesla. GM has already partnered with LG Energy Solutions to build three battery plants, but has declined to move forward with a fourth.

This comes as South Korean President Yoon Sok-yul visits Washington, accompanied by more than 100 CEOs of South Korea’s largest companies. Reuters said the announcement will likely come as Yoon meets US President Joe Biden.

General Motors is betting big on electric vehicles and became the second largest seller of electric vehicles in the United States in the first quarter. But it still lags behind Tesla by a huge margin, according to analyst estimates.

Shares of Samsung SDI fell 1.65% on Monday.

– Yoo Bon Bing

Hong Kong unemployment rate decreased to 3.1% for the January-March period, compared to 3.3% in the December 2022-February period.

This marks the tenth consecutive month of decline in the unemployment rate in the province, and the lowest since October 2019, according to Refinitiv data.

The Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department said it had observed a significant decline in the building maintenance, repair and decoration sector, as well as in the wholesale sector.

The territory’s Labor and Welfare Minister Chris Sun expects that Hong Kong’s labor market should improve further, citing the continued revival of local economic activities and domestic tourism, as well as the disbursement of a new batch of consumption vouchers.

– Lim Hwi Ji

China has directed the country’s banks to cut deposit rates further, Reuters reported.

Citing seven people with knowledge of the matter, Reuters said this was in an effort to “direct the country’s vast pool of savings into more productive spending and investments.”

The Chinese central bank does not set bank interest rates directly but directs them through the so-called interest rate self-regulatory mechanism, which involves small and large banks.

According to a person familiar with the plans, Reuters said that one of the country’s “big four” banks plans to cut some interest rates for individuals and companies next week.

Earlier this month, small and medium-sized Chinese banks cut interest rates, following similar moves by big banks a year ago.

– Lim Hwi Ji

Analysts have been very bullish on hydrogen as a clean energy pillar to invest in, as the push for clean energy gathers momentum with the US Inflation Cut Act.

HSBC said in a note dated April 20 that clean hydrogen remains a “more compelling” option for decarbonizing – unlike batteries – when it comes to trucks, ships, trains and planes.

The bank has named stocks that offer hydrogen exposure in a variety of ways, giving one a boost of more than 100%.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

– Wizen tan

South Korea’s gross domestic product jumped 0.8% In the first quarter compared to last year, according to advance estimates from the country’s central bank.

This was slightly below economists’ forecasts of 0.9%.

On a quarterly basis, South Korea’s GDP expanded 0.3%, slightly above economists’ expectations of 0.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi Index opened slightly higher after the announcement, while the Kosdaq Index fell 0.25%.

– Lim Hwi Ji

Although the Fed policy meeting won’t take place until next week, Oppenheimer said knowing that it is looming could add volatility to the market this week.

“This week as earnings season activity intensifies across a broad range of sectors, we expect investors’ anticipation of the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting in the first week of May to increase daily tone and market volatility,” John said. Stoltzfus, the company’s chief investment analyst.

Many market participants expect the central bank to implement another quarter-percentage-point increase in interest rates at the next meeting. Investors have been watching the Fed closely amid concerns that a campaign to raise interest rates may now send the economy into a slowdown or recession.

“Uncertainty remains a burden in the markets as to how long the Fed will continue to raise interest rates and whether its efforts will tip the economy into recession before the current Fed funds hike cycle ends,” Stoltzfus said.

– Alex Haring

Fox shares came under pressure after Fox News announced that host Tucker Carlson would be leaving the cable network, effective immediately.

Fox Class A and B stock fell about 4% after the announcement.

Carlson’s departure comes shortly after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for nearly $800 million.

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and before that as a contributor.”

– Jesse Pound

Nearly a third of the members of the S&P 500 are set to report earnings this week, as investors look to tech giants and heavyweights in the energy and industrial sectors for more clues about the broader economic health.

So far, this quarter’s earnings have been better than expected. According to a recent observation from Goldman Sachs, 53% of companies in the broader index beat consensus estimates by at least one standard deviation, above the 25-year average of 48%. Fifteen percent of the companies missed consensus estimates by at least one standard deviation, below the 25-year average of 14%.

Here are some of the major names reported this week:

• Monday: The Coca-Cola Company, Cadence Design Systems, Amerprise Financial Services, First Republic Bank
• Tuesday: Google, Microsoft, Visa, PepsiCo, McDonald’s
• Wednesday: Meta, Boeing, Service Now
• Thursday: Amazon, Intel, Eli Lilly, MasterCard, Merck
• Friday: Exxon, Chevron, Sony, Colgate-Palmolive

– Piya Singh

Technology stocks underperformed on Monday, contributing to a 0.6% decline in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite as of 10:45 AM ET.

The S&P 500’s IT sector fell 0.6%, which led to the downside by falling chip stocks and clean energy stocks falling, with First Solar and Enphase Energy losing 5.4% and 1.3%, respectively. Among chipmakers, Advanced Micro Devices lost 1.7%, while Lam Research, Qorvo and Western Digital lost at least 1% each. Salesforce fell 1.5%.

Consumer discretionary shares also slipped, with Tesla and Amazon finally dropping 3.2% and 0.8%, respectively. Some cruise stocks also contributed to the declines.

This week brings earnings reports from major tech stocks including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms. Shares of the three companies fell slightly during morning trading, which affected the Nasdaq.

– Samantha Sobin