| The Fed says stimulus will keep flowing until the U.S. job market is back on its feet. The global shift to value from growth is playing out in Australian shares. And Tesla surges above $1000 for the first time. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about today. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sent a powerful message Wednesday that the central bank will keep pumping stimulus into the U.S. economy until its traumatized labor market has healed from the harm of the coronavirus pandemic. "We're not even thinking about thinking about raising rates," he told a video press conference after the Federal Open Market Committee held its policy benchmark near zero and almost all officials forecast keeping it there through 2022. "We are strongly committed to using our tools to do whatever we can for as long as it takes," Powell said. The FOMC said it would increase its holdings of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities "at least at the current pace" to sustain smooth market functioning. A related statement from the New York Fed specified that the pace of the balance-sheet increase would be maintained at about $80 billion a month for purchases of Treasuries and about $40 billion for mortgage-backed securities. Stocks in Asia looked set to drop as investors assessed the Federal Reserve's forecast of a long road to economic recovery and loose monetary policy. Treasuries rose and the dollar extended this month's slide. Futures were lower in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. In a volatile session earlier, the S&P 500 closed lower as Jerome Powell suggested the pandemic could inflict longer-lasting damage on the economy, even as the Fed signaled it would keep rates near zero — possibly for years to come. Treasury 10-year yields sank to as low as 0.72%, while the dollar extended its June slide to 2.5%. The Nasdaq 100 climbed to a record high as Tesla topped $1,000, while gold rose. The global shift to value from growth is playing out in Australian shares in force and could help the nation's benchmark stock index close the gap with regional peers, according to analysts. The recent surge in domestic value stocks is stronger than in the U.S., in part because the major banks have climbed to a three-month high amid growing optimism surrounding the economy. In fact, Australia is primed for a value comeback after becoming one of Asia's biggest underdogs since the coronavirus outbreak started, Jefferies Group said. Shares that have underperformed since February and seen 2022 earnings downgrades since the beginning of the outbreak may be the best value plays, Macquarie analysts wrote, citing GPT Group and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group among its preferred picks. After Nikola burst onto the scene on the Nasdaq last week, doubling on Monday and rising another 28% shortly after Tuesday, Elon Musk wasn't about to let a revenue-less manufacturer of zero-emission semi trucks steal the spotlight from Tesla. The chief executive officer sent an email to employees before the market opened Wednesday declaring that it is "time to go all out" and put Tesla's Semi into volume production. Musk didn't give a time frame for when he expects mass output to actually happen. Just six weeks ago, Tesla said it was postponing initial deliveries to 2021, roughly two years later than initially planned. If Musk was looking to regain the attention of any investors whose eyes had wandered toward Nikola, the market got the memo. Tesla's stock surged past $1,000 for the first time, while shares of newly listed Nikola sold off after days of hype about its plans to bring battery-electric and fuel-cell haulers to market in the coming years. The Hong Kong arm of China's biggest asset manager is amassing cash and building up short positions in a bet that the U.S.-China power games will escalate ahead of the American election later this year. The market hasn't fully accounted for the "extreme steps" that President Donald Trump might take in an attempt to shore up flagging poll numbers, said Gan Tian, chief investment officer of China Asset Management (Hong Kong), who oversees almost $400 million in hedge fund assets. "It could be to challenge China in South China Sea, it could be a military or diplomatic alliance with Taiwan that crosses the red line, or worse," Gan said in a phone interview from Hong Kong. "If that happens it would ripple through the financial market immediately." Tension is again building between China and the U.S. after a three-year trade dispute. Now, politicians in Washington are lashing out over the coronavirus outbreak, China's treatment of its Muslim minority and its tightening grip on Hong Kong. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours: And finally, here's what Tracy's interested in this morning There's a fine tradition in Chinese companies of buying stocks that vaguely fit the zeitgeist du jour. Think, for instance, of the investors who flocked to a stock whose name sounded like "Trump Wins Big" in Mandarin, or all the companies with "cement," "construction," and "development" in their names that benefited after Beijing announced a new economic area near the capital in 2017. Now comes Fangdd Network Group Ltd., a Shenzhen-based Chinese real-estate firm whose U.S.-listed shares jumped an astounding 395% in one day this week. Given that FAANG stocks — the group comprised of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (Alphabet) — helped propel the market to recent heights, you can kind of see the interest. As Bloomberg notes: "Maybe it was another case of mistaken identity, or just Pavlovian enthusiasm on a day when the FANG stocks were powering up." Either way, the move may be instructive.  As my colleague and Odd Lots co-host Joe Weisenthal notes, market recoveries typically follow a pattern. First consumer staples that make "recession-proof" goods like canned soup tend to outperform the broader index. Then tech stocks start to pick up, followed by stable growth companies with strong balance sheets. In the final stage of recovery, there's typically a dash for trash that sees low-quality stocks go up. A Chinese real estate company that happens to share its name with "FAANG" could fit that bill. You can follow Bloomberg's Tracy Alloway at @tracyalloway. A Japanese edition of Five Things is coming soon. 世界のビジネスニュースを毎朝メールでお届けします。ニュースレターへの登録はこちら。 | 
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