Hong Kong stocks retreat as Xpeng leads EV stocks lower, U.S.-China talks kick off

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese electric vehicle firm Xpeng fell 4.21% after it reported quarterly earnings late Wednesday.

Xpeng reported an operating loss during the quarter ended September. Quarterly operating loss was 3.89 billion yuan (about $530 million), more than a year-earlier operating loss of 2.38 billion yuan.

The company also reported quarterly revenues of 8.53 billion yuan, a 25% increase from the same period last year.

Total deliveries of vehicles by Xpeng were 40,008 during the third quarter, a 72.4% rise from 23,205 quarter-on-quarter. Xpeng is often considered a key rival to Tesla in China.

Other Hong Kong-listed Chinese EV stocks including Nio, Li Auto, BYD Company fell between 0.4% and 4%.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.81% in Thursday morning trade, shaving off more than half of its gains from the previous session.

The Hang Seng Tech index shed 2.34%. Most tech focused stocks had rallied on Wednesday on signs of cooling U.S. inflation, which lifted hopes that the Federal Reserve could soon end its interest rate hiking policy.

On Thursday, stocks including Alibaba, Xiaomi, Xpeng and Li Auto were among decliners clocking losses between 2.4% and 6.79%.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Australia added more jobs in October with employment growing at a faster than expected pace, according to a government survey.

Net employment rose 55,000 last month from September, more than double the forecast of 20,000 additions, according to a Reuters poll.

The unemployment rate grew to 3.7% in October, matching expectations and a touch higher than 3.6% in September.

The data comes days after a different economic indicator showed Australia's consumer confidence slid in November.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.48% by afternoon trading.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

UBS has highlighted several stock ideas it favors for 2024, as it forecasts massive cuts for interest rates next year.

The investment bank expects the U.S. will see slower economic growth and strong disinflation leading to an interest rate cut of 275 basis points. That would bring the Federal Funds Rate down from the current range of 5.25% and 5.5% to between 2.50% and 2.75%.

Given the economic outlook, UBS strategists recommend a number of trades to clients for 2024. CNBC Pro has highlighted three of them. Subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

The U.S. and China have agreed to resume high-level military communication, according to both countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday in their first face-to-face encounter in a year.

"We're back to direct, open, clear communications," Biden said at a press conference after the talks.

The U.S. has wanted to revive the military communication, especially after some near-miss incidents where China's ships almost collided with American forces.

"We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict," Biden said at the start of the summit. "Critical global challenges we face, from climate change to counternarcotics to artificial intelligence, demand our joint efforts."

The summit, held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco, followed efforts between the countries to increase high-level communication amid continued tensions.

Read the full story here.

— Evelyn Cheng

Shares in this tech giantare set to jump over 10% in the next 12 months, according to Brian Nowak, an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.

The U.S. investment bank's price target on the stock – gives it potential upside of around 11.5%.

"What we really liked about [the stock] is we think the market is still under appreciating the durability of their revenue growth in 2024 and 2025," he told CNBC's "" on Wednesday.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Amala Balakrishner

Oil prices settled lower Wednesday amid rising U.S. inventories and record production.

U.S. crude fell $1.60, or 2.04%, to settle at $76.66 a barrel for the West Texas Intermediate December contract, while Brent crude, the global benchmark, slid $1.29, or 1.56%, to settle at $81.81 for the January contract.

Crude inventories in the U.S. rose by 3.6 million barrels last week, according to data released by the Energy Information Agency Wednesday. The U.S. continued to produce crude at a record pace, 13.2 million barrels per day. Imports fell slightly, 21,000 barrels per day, to about 6.4 million bpd.

-- Spencer Kimball

Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, believes there's a good chance that the U.S. economy could get away unscathed in 2024.

"Everybody likes to obsess about student loan payments being a negative for the consumer, but we do not think we're going to have a recession next year," he told CNBC.

As catalysts, Hatfield cited a strong housing market and the drop in gasoline prices, which is very bullish for consumers. "And it's way more important than student loan payments. There's not that many consumers with student loan payments, but everyone uses energy and gasoline either directly or indirectly," he added.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Tuesday's softer-than-expected consumer price index reading instilled fresh hope into the market that the Federal Reserve was finally putting an end to its rate-hiking cycle. Investors are largely anticipating a dovish pivot next year, with futures now pricing in an 87% chance of a rate cut as soon as the May 2024 FOMC meeting, said Deutsche Bank macro strategist Henry Allen.

"But this is at least the 7th time in this cycle that markets have seen a clear reaction to a potential dovish pivot," he wrote.

In the previous six occasions, investors were left disappointed. "Moreover, a consistent story of this cycle so far has been that markets have pushed out the timing of future rate cuts," Allen said.

Here are the six previous times the market anticipated a dovish pivot, that didn't come to fruition, according to Allen:

1. November 2023: "Weak data releases and a downside surprise in the CPI lead markets to bring forward the pricing of Fed cuts."
2. March 2023: "The banking turmoil following SVB's collapse led to growing anticipation that central banks had finished hiking rates altogether."
3. Late September/Early October 2022: "Major market turmoil centered on the UK leads markets to price in more rate cuts for 2023."
4. July 2022: "Global recession fears and a weak inflation print sees talk of slower rate hikes resurface."
5. May 2022: "Rising risks to global growth see investors take out expected tightening."
6. Late February/Early March 2022: "Russia's invasion of Ukraine sees the Fed commence hikes with 25bps rather than 50bps."

— Lisa Kailai Han, Michael Bloom