U.S. earnings, Hong Kong gains

New Zealand’s fourth-quarter unemployment rate came in at 4%, lower than the 4.2% expected by economists polled by Reuters.

It was higher than the 3.9% rate in the preceding quarter, and also more than the 3.4% recorded in the December 2022 quarter.

The country’s participation rate fell marginally to 71.9% in the fourth quarter, lower than the 72% seen in the third quarter.

— Lim Hui Jie

Competition is fierce in the electric vehicle industry, with investor favorite Tesla competing with a slew of Chinese rivals.

But Jason Hsu, chairman and chief investment officer of Rayliant Global Advisors, believes that one stock will come out ahead.

According to FactSet, analysts covering the stock give it potential upside of 81.1% to the average price target, with 94% giving it a buy rating.

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— Weizhen Tan

Cleveland Federal Reserve President Loretta Mester on Tuesday became the latest central banker to advocate a patient approach to cutting interest rates this year.

Like several other officials who have spoken recently, Mester said she’s not ready to start easing policy until she gains more confidence that inflation is on a stable path towards the Fed’s 2% goal. Having a strong economy allows policymakers to hold off on any dramatic moves, she added.

“If the economy evolves as expected, I think we will gain that confidence later this year, and then we can begin moving rates down,” Mester, a voting member this year on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said in prepared remarks for a speech in her home district. “My base case is that we will do so at a gradual pace so that we can continue to manage the risks to both sides of our mandate.”

Markets have moved back expectations for the first cut to May, with five total quarter percentage point moves lower priced in, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch futures gauge.

—Jeff Cox

Oil prices rose Tuesday as U.S. domestic crude production is expected to plateau this year after setting a record in 2023.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for March added 53 cents, or 0.73%, to settle at $73.31 a barrel. The Brent contract for April was settled at $78.59 a barrel, up 60 cents, or 0.77%.

U.S. crude output set a record of 13.3 million barrels per day in December before pulling back to 12.6 million bpd in January due to winter storms, according to data released by Energy Information Agency.

Domestic production will briefly return 13.3 million bpd in February but then decline through the middle of the year, according to the EIA. The U.S. will not exceed the production record of 13.3 million bpd until February 2025.

Record U.S. crude production has weighed on oil prices for months as traders worry that that the market is oversupplied amid a faltering economy in China.

— Spencer Kimball

The price of bitcoin rose 2% in afternoon tradin, pulling crypto related equities up with it.

Crypto exchange Coinbase gained more than 2%, while bitcoin proxy Microstrategy added 1.8%. Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital, the largest of the bitcoin miners, gain 4% and 3%, respectively.

The move in bitcoin coincided with a decline in the 10-year Treasury yield, which added to concerns about U.S. regional banks. New York Community Bancorp fell more than 20% Tuesday, extending a sell-off that began Wednesday. The Invesco KBW Regional Banking ETF lost 1.5%. Last year’s regional banking crisis proved to be a positive catalyst for bitcoin as investors who lost confidence in the banks turned to the cryptocurrency as a hedge against uncertainty.

Elsewhere in crypto, ether jumped more than 4%, lifted in part by bitcoin. It got a boost earlier in the day as investors rotated out of the coin tied to the Solana network, which suffered a brief outage in the morning.

— Tanaya Macheel

With just over half of S&P 500 companies having reported earnings for the previous quarter, here’s where this season stacks up,…