Asian markets mostly lower after tech stocks push Nasdaq to record high

The Reserve Bank of Australia considered raising interest rates at its May meeting, minutes from the central bank’s meeting show.

Commissioners noted that Australia’s inflation rate had fallen less than expected, and that international economic growth and inflation had exceeded expectations.

RBA Board members also agreed that economic information since the April meeting increased the risk that inflation would remain above target for an extended period.

Meanwhile, the RBA kept the cash rate unchanged at 4.35%.

— Lim Huijie

According to Bernstein, the U.S. move to impose higher tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles will impact the U.S. battery supply chain and create investment opportunities.

Bernstein said in a May 13 memo that these tariffs will benefit the U.S. battery supply chain, with demand expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25% to 30%.

It lists the names of stocks around the world that investors can consider.

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— Tan Weizhen

Schroders fund manager Vera Jarman said the global video game developer’s shares are currently being ignored by the market and are being sold at “very cheap” prices.

The company’s stock price has taken a big hit over the past few years, with shares down significantly from their peak in 2021, and down 40% in the past 12 months alone.

The value investor believes the company is well-positioned for future growth with $1.1 billion in net cash and strong cash flow generation.

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— Ganesh Rao

Commodities remain the biggest threat to the U.S. stock market, said Tavis McCourt, managing director at Raymond James.

“The biggest ‘risk to bulls’ in the US this year remains commodity prices,” McCourt told clients in a note on Sunday.

He pointed out that if commodity prices continue to rise, disinflation will become severe. McCourt also said further price increases could cause global portfolio managers to return to emerging markets and commodity-focused indexes after pouring money into the U.S. market.

— Alex Harring

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon suggested Monday that he is still close to stepping down from running the nation’s largest bank.

“The timeline is no longer five years,” the 68-year-old chief executive said at the bank’s annual investor day. The comments, reported by the Wall Street Journal, are a bit of a departure from the way he usually brushes off questions about his future.

There are multiple successor candidates, and the next CEO is expected to be selected from within. JPMorgan shares fell 2.5% in afternoon trading.

— Jeff Cox

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Philip Jefferson stressed on Monday that inflation has not cooled quickly enough to justify cutting interest rates.

Mr. Jefferson said the pace of inflation has “moderated dramatically” from its peak in mid-2022, but added that he supports the Federal Open Market Committee’s recent decision to keep interest rates unchanged.

“With the labor market rebalanced and inflation coming down, I believe we are in the realm of tightening interest rates, but not as quickly as I would have liked,” Jefferson said in a speech in New York. That’s not true.”

Most notably, Mr. He said he calculated that it was more than 2%.

— Jeff Cox