Market Week Ahead: Supercentral Bank Week and NVIDIA's GTC Highlights

TradingKey - Last week, the U.S. stock market extended its downward trend. The Dow Jones fell about 3.1%, marking its worst weekly performance since March 2023. This week, the market welcomes "Supercentral Bank Week," during which multiple central banks will announce interest rate decisions. The Federal Reserve is expected to attract the most attention, while central banks in Japan, the UK, and Switzerland will also announce their rate decisions. 

NVIDIA is set to hold its global AI conference, GTC 2025, focused on developers, with a notable increase in interest surrounding humanoid robots and physical AI. 

Micron Technology and FedEx scheduled to report their earnings, while Nike is expected to post a double-digit decline in its third-quarter results. Moreover, Chinese companies, including Pinduoduo, Tencent, NIO, and Meituan, will also release their latest earnings this week.

Supercentral Bank Week is Coming

The market is keenly focused on the Federal Reserve's stance regarding President Trump's new round of tariff wars and its latest perspectives. Amid rising global trade friction risks and an uncertain policy outlook in the U.S., the policy decisions of the Fed and the Bank of Japan are undoubtedly in the limelight.

Morgan Stanley analysts expect the Fed to maintain the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%, with Chairman Jerome Powell likely to continue his "patience" stance that began in January, indicating that there is no urgency to act. The Fed is also expected to uphold a "data-dependent" policy approach without providing clear guidance on future rate actions.

As domestic wage levels rose and inflation expectations continued to climb, the Bank of Japan ended its long-standing negative interest rate policy and made its first interest rate hike in over a decade—an action interpreted by the market as a turning point for the Japanese economy. Recent surveys show that economists widely anticipate the Bank of Japan to keep its benchmark rate unchanged in March, with potential for the next rate hike to occur in the third quarter.

The Bank of England will announce its rate decision on Thursday.In February, the Bank of England cut rates by 25 basis points, and most economists expect it to hold steady at this meeting. While markets expect no policy changes, any dovish comments from policymakers in Thursday's statement could weaken the pound. 

Can NVIDIA's GTC 2025 Boost Its Stock?

NVIDIA's GTC 2025 conference is scheduled for March 17-21, featuring over 1,000 presentations and more than 300 in-person demonstrations across various fields, including humanoid robotics, cybersecurity, healthcare, and autonomous driving. This conference will focus on four major technological innovations in AI infrastructure: power design, liquid cooling, communication technology (CPO), and high-density PCB. Key highlights include high-voltage direct current (HVDC) solutions, energy storage systems combining supercapacitors and lithium-ion battery units, advancements in liquid cooling technology, and a new CPO switch featuring 115.2 Tbps.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted key highlights for NVIDIA's GTC 2025. He stated that the new AI chip B300 will be a focal point, featuring both CoWoS-L and CoWoS-S, with a significant upgrade in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) from 192GB to 288GB and a 50% performance increase compared to the B200. The B300 is expected to enter trial production in Q2 2025 and begin mass production in Q3 2025. Additionally, NVIDIA's long-term trend towards edge AI is anticipated, but the GTC 2025 is likely to concentrate on AI servers, with expectations that the AIPC solutions N1X and N1 could be unveiled at this year's Computex.

Micron Earnings in the Spotlight

Micron Technology benefits from a broad product lineup that meets the growing demands in the AI sector, reporting record revenue in its fiscal Q1 2025 for data centers. However, it has projected a second-quarter forecast below market expectations, estimating revenue between $7.7 billion and $8.1 billion, lower than Wall Street's projection of $8.99 billion. The diluted EPS forecast for the second quarter is between $1.16 and $1.36. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has warned that "the consumer-facing market will remain weak in the short term," but growth is expected to resume in the second half of the fiscal year.

Multiple Chinese Companies Set to Release Earnings

The Hong Kong stock market is entering a period of concentrated earnings releases, including reports from Xiaomi Group (01810.HK), Pinduoduo (PDD.US), Tencent Holdings (00700.HK), NIO (NIO.US), and Meituan (03690.HK). These releases are anticipated to act as catalysts for a rally in the Hang Seng Index. Xiaomi Group is scheduled to release its Q4 earnings on March 18, with the market broadly expecting it to achieve revenue of 102.211 billion yuan for Q4 2024, a year-on-year increase of 39.55%, and an expected EPS of 0.218 yuan, up 20.83% year-on-year.

Tencent Holdings is set to release its latest quarterly earnings on March 19. The market generally expects Tencent's Q4 revenue to reach 168.435 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.53%, with an expected EPS of 4.553 yuan, marking a 62.21% year-on-year growth. This earnings report will particularly focus on capital expenditures. 

Key Economic Data This Week

Monday: U.S. February Retail Sales Month-on-Month

Wednesday: Bank of Japan Announces Rate Decision.

Thursday: Federal Reserve Rate Decision (Upper Limit) as of March 19, UK Bank Rate Decision as of March 20.

Key Events This Week

Wednesday: Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda holds a monetary policy press conference. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote speech.

Thursday: Federal Reserve Chair Powell holds a monetary policy press conference.

Friday: FOMC permanent voter and New York Fed President John Williams speaks.

Upcoming Earnings

Tuesday: Xiaomi Group (01810.HK), Xpeng Motors (XPEV.N)

Wednesday: Tencent Holdings (00700.HK), Ping An Insurance (02318.HK)

Thursday: Micron Technology (MU.O), Nike (NKE.N), FedEx (FDX.N), Pinduoduo (PDD.O)

Friday: Meituan (03690.HK), NIO (NIO.N)