US Stock Market Pre-market Highlights | The Federal Reserve holds rates steady for the second consecutive time! Micron's high capital expenditure plan raises concerns, shares fall over 5% pre-market

Glonghui March 19｜1. All three major U.S. stock index futures fell, with Nasdaq futures down 0.59%, S&P 500 index futures down 0.6%, and Dow Jones futures down 0.78%. 2. Major European stock indices plunged collectively, with Germany's DAX index down 3%, the UK's FTSE 100 index down 2.72%, France's CAC index down 2.09%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 index down 2.49%. 3. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged as expected at the 3.5% to 3.75% range, and is expected to cut rates once each in 2026 and 2027. 4. U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ending March 14 recorded 205,000, with expectations at 215,000 and the previous value at 213,000. 5. U.S. President Trump: Has no knowledge of the Israel-Iran South Pars gas field incident; if Iran attacks Qatar again, the U.S. military will completely destroy the entire South Pars gas field. 6. U.S. national debt increased by 1 trillion dollars in 5 months, reaching a record high of 39 trillion dollars. 7. UBS warns: If the Middle East conflict is prolonged and there is no productivity improvement, global stock markets could plunge by 30%. 8. Musk: SpaceX AI and Tesla are expected to continue large-scale orders of Nvidia chips. 9. Micron's Q2 revenue and EPS both hit single-quarter records, with this fiscal year's capital expenditure guidance raised by 25% to 25 billion dollars. 10. Bridgewater's Chief Scientist Jasjeet Sekhon will join Google DeepMind as Chief Strategy Officer. 11. Qualcomm CEO Amon expects the total addressable market (TAM) to reach 900 billion dollars by 2030. 12. Alibaba's Q3 revenue grew 2% year-on-year to 284.84 billion yuan, with Alibaba Cloud revenue surging 36%; self-developed Pingtouge GPU has entered mass production. 13. Eli Lilly's experimental weight loss drug "Retatrutide" resulted in an average weight loss of 15.3% among participants, outperforming existing drugs on the market. 14. Optical communication leader Lumentum aims to achieve quarterly revenue of 2 billion dollars within two years. 15. Uber will invest up to 1.25 billion dollars in Rivian, collaborating to deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis. 16. Activist investor Elliott reportedly holds a significant stake in Invisalign manufacturer Align and plans to urge measures to boost the stock price. Key events to watch during the U.S. stock market session: 22:00 U.S. February Conference Board Leading Index MoM / U.S. January New Home Sales Annualized / U.S. January Wholesale Sales MoM