Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average continues to rise and hits new highs

China remains an important trading partner for many countries around the world, and the common narrative of a superpower being cut off from the global economy goes too far, the Asian Development Bank says.

“China remains probably the largest trading partner for the majority of countries in the world,” Albert Park, ADB’s chief economist, told CNBC. “I think the talk of China being cut off from the global economy is probably either very overdone or very partial in general.”

The economic powerhouse remains its largest trading partner with more than 120 countries, and remains its largest trading partner with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, according to the Wilson Center, a US think tank.

Additionally, despite the worsening trade tensions between China and the US since 2018, China continues to play a major role in the global economy as the world’s largest trading economy.

—Li Yingshan

Investors looking to protect their portfolios from the risk of a resurgence of inflation in 2024 should consider three “long-term defensive” stocks with good “inflation-linked” returns, said Freddie Leight, chief investment officer at Latitude Investment Management. It is said that you can choose.

Leight, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, believes these stocks can grow 10% to 15% a year while acting as a hedge against inflation.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

The buzz surrounding Nvidia shows no signs of slowing down, with the semiconductor giant posting yet another quarter of billions of dollars in revenue upside.

The company, which had already soared more than 200% in 2023, rose 13% after the earnings report. It’s up about 58% this year alone, and Nvidia’s most recent close on Thursday was about $785.

But how far can Nvidia go? Here’s what analysts think. CNBC Pro scoured the report this week and listed the latest price targets for NVIDIA from major Wall Street banks.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Tan Weizhen

Here are the closing prices for the major indexes on Friday:

— Peer Singh

JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon sold about 800,000 shares of the bank’s stock on Thursday, generating about $150 million, according to securities filings and Verity data.

The move appears to be part of a “10B5” plan for corporate executives to sell their company stock.

Dimon still owns about 7.7 million JPMorgan shares, according to VerityData.

— Jesse Pound

Big tech stocks related to AI are driving the stock market to new highs, but there may still be room for more upside.

In fact, Greg Marcus of UBS Private Wealth Management believes investors should take advantage of market volatility to buy big tech stocks.

“We are likely to see more pullbacks and volatility in the coming months, so we support a buy-on-the-dip approach when it comes to big tech stocks,” he said.

In addition to being a beneficiary of the artificial intelligence theme, Marcus notes that many large tech companies have strong balance sheets and revenue growth potential, characteristics that allow them to weather high interest rate environments. He pointed out that he has.

However, the asset management company also emphasized that the market’s upside is likely to widen in 2024.

“While we expect tech stocks to continue to be resilient, we also expect to see some attention on the Magnificent 7 stocks, which are still weighty but less dramatic,” he said.

— Lisa Kailai Han