Dow Jones drops over 600 points late at night, Bilibili falls 7%, gold and silver plummet rapidly

On March 5, expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut cooled, and all three major U.S. stock indexes opened lower in unison. As of 23:25, the Dow Jones was down 1.24%, falling by more than 600 points. The Nasdaq fell 0.38%, and the S&P 500 was down 0.62%.

Most chip stocks declined. Nvidia, AMD, ASML, Intel, and ARM all fell by more than 1%. Broadcom rose by more than 5%. The company expects AI chip revenue to exceed $100 billion next year.

Gold and silver stocks fell. Hecla Mining and Coeurdalen Mining dropped by more than 3%. Gold Fields, Kinross Gold, E.S. Gold Industries, Pan American Silver, Newmont Mining, and Harmony Gold fell by more than 2%.

Oil stocks rose. BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron gained by more than 1%.

U.S. cybersecurity stocks strengthened. Okta surged more than 10% after earnings. CrowdStrike and Datadog rose by nearly 5%.

Among well-known individual stocks, Berkshire-A rose 1.6% and Berkshire-B rose 1.2%. In terms of news flow, Berkshire Hathaway announced it had restarted its own share buyback for the first time since 2024. The company’s newly appointed CEO, Greg Abel, purchased shares worth $15 million.

Most China concept stocks fell. Bilibili fell by more than 7%, Shell fell by more than 3%, and Alibaba and JD.com fell by more than 2%.

In precious metals, international precious metals prices fell across the board. Spot gold fell 0.93%, dropping below $5,100; it was trading at $5,072.77 per ounce. Spot silver plunged, once down by more than 3%; as of the time of writing, silver was down nearly 2%.

In crude oil, NYMEX WTI and ICE Brent crude continued to rise. As of the time of writing, WTI’s intraday gain reached 5%, at $78.43 per barrel. Brent crude rose by more than 3%, to $84.02 per barrel.

According to a report from China Central Television (CCTV) News, local morning on March 5, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement saying that early that morning, a U.S. oil tanker was hit by missiles fired by its navy in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. According to information from Iran, on March 5 the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that during wartime, Iran has the right to control passage and navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and that military and commercial vessels such as those from the United States, Israel, European countries, and their supporters are prohibited from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. “If they are found by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they will surely be attacked.”

According to Xinhua News Agency, it was reported that the U.S. military has begun preparations for actions against Iran to continue through September. The United States has not made “adequate preparations” to escalate military actions against Iran; it is currently adding manpower and other resources to support the war lasting “at least 100 days, or even through September.”

According to a report from Xinhua Finance, during the week ending February 28, the number of initial unemployment claims in the United States was 213k, slightly below market expectations.

According to a report from China Finance and Securities News, the number of people continuously claiming unemployment benefits in the United States rose to 1.87 million in the week prior, the largest increase since the beginning of this year. After being disrupted in recent months by holiday and winter weather factors, it is now stabilizing, approaching lower levels seen over the past year. The data releases a clearer signal, showing that the labor market remains in an environment of low layoffs. The number of seasonally unadjusted initial unemployment claims for the previous week increased, almost entirely driven by New York State. The number of applicants in Michigan also rose.

According to the CME “FedWatch”: the probability that the Federal Reserve will cut rates by 25 basis points by March is 2.7%, and the probability of keeping rates unchanged is 97.3%. The probability of cumulative 25-basis-point cuts by April is 12.5%, and the probability of keeping rates unchanged is 87.3%. The probability of cumulative 50-basis-point cuts is 0.3%. The probability of cumulative 25-basis-point cuts by June is 32.1%.