The Dow plunged over 450 points last night! The Federal Reserve's latest comments

U.S. major stock indexes fell overnight, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 450 points, or 1.01%; the Nasdaq down 0.47%; and the S&P 500 down 0.43%.

Among them, Walmart, a component stock of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell 6.5% after the company forecasted a 3% to 4% increase in sales for the current fiscal year and its profit outlook for fiscal 2026 was lower than analysts' expectations. The weak guidance overshadowed its better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings.

Most large-cap tech stocks fell, with Amazon, Netflix, Meta, and Tesla down more than 1%; Google slightly down; Intel up more than 1%; Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft slightly up.

Quantum computing stocks continued to rise, with D-Wave Quantum up 13%, SEALSQ up more than 10%, Arqit Quantum up over 6%, and Rigetti Computing up about 4%.

Microsoft, a U.S. tech giant, released its first quantum computing chip, "Majorana 1", on the 19th. Earlier, two other tech companies, Google and IBM, also released their own quantum chips, with IonQ and Rigetti, two smaller quantum computing companies, also entering the same race.

Most of the hot Chinese stocks rose, with the Nasdaq China Dragon Index closing up 1.6%. Alibaba rose more than 8%, JD and Weibo up over 5%, Baidu up nearly 2%, Waymo down nearly 19%, iQIYI down nearly 10%, NetEase down nearly 3%, and Xiaopeng Auto down nearly 2%.

U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Kugler expects the PCE inflation rate in January to be 2.4% and the core PCE inflation rate to be 2.6%; there is still a gap from the 2% target. Kugler said the Fed should keep the policy rate unchanged for a period of time. Kugler said that tariffs may bring upward pressure on prices, but the extent is unclear.

COMEX gold futures rose 0.67% to US$2955.8/ounce, once hitting a record high in the intraday trading. COMEX silver futures rose 1.2% to US$33.44/ounce.

International oil futures settled slightly higher. WTI crude oil futures for March delivery settled up 32 cents, or 0.44%, at US$72.57 a barrel. Brent crude oil futures for April delivery settled up 44 cents, or 0.58%, at US$76.48 a barrel.