On Wednesday, Eastern Time, US stocks rebounded after four consecutive days of declines, with all three major indices closing higher. The Nasdaq led the gains, rising 0.6%.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.10% at 46,138.77; the S&P 500 index was up 0.38% at 6,642.16; and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.59% at 22,564.23. In the previous session, both the Dow and the S&P 500 had suffered four-day losing streaks, with the S&P 500 marking its longest decline since August, while the Nasdaq recorded its fifth decline in the past six trading sessions.

Most major tech stocks rose. Nvidia gained 2.85%, Microsoft fell 1.35%, Apple rose 0.42%, Amazon edged up 0.06%, Meta fell 1.23%, Tesla rose 0.70%, Broadcom surged 4.09%, and Oracle advanced 2.29%.

It is worth mentioning that Google was one of the standout performers on Wednesday. Its stock price rose 3% at the close, having surged as much as 6.9% during the session to hit a record high. Google released its Gemini 3 model on Tuesday, which received unanimous praise for its performance, boosting investor confidence in the company's competitiveness in the AI field.

Most popular Chinese concept stocks declined. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index fell 1.54%. Alibaba fell 0.52%, JD.com fell 1.95%, Pinduoduo fell 1.30%, Nio fell 3.85%, XPeng fell 6.41%, Li Auto fell 3.27%, Bilibili fell 3.43%, Baidu fell 1.43%, NetEase fell 4.15%, Tencent Music edged up 0.16%, and Pony.ai fell 4.17%.

The FTSE A50 index futures continuous contract fell 0.07% during the overnight session, closing at 15,256 points.

USD/JPY rose above 157 for the first time since January this year, gaining nearly 1% on the day.

International oil prices fell on the 19th. At the close, the December delivery light crude oil futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $1.30 to settle at $59.44 per barrel, a decrease of 2.14%. The January delivery London Brent crude oil futures contract fell $1.38 to settle at $63.51 per barrel, a decrease of 2.13%.

COMEX gold futures rose 0.36% to $4,081.10 per ounce; COMEX silver futures rose 1.17% to $51.110 per ounce.

In the New York late session on Wednesday (November 19th), the CME Bitcoin futures BTC main contract fell 2.72% compared to Tuesday's New York late session, to $90,390.

On Wednesday (November 19th) Eastern Time, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy meeting held from October 28th to 29th. The minutes showed that policymakers were significantly divided on whether to continue cutting interest rates in December.

At the October meeting, the FOMC voted 10 to 2 to cut interest rates by 25 basis points, lowering the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75%-4.00%.

Financial markets had widely anticipated that the Fed would continue cutting rates by 25 basis points at the December meeting. However, Fed Chair Powell stated at the press conference after the October meeting that a December rate cut was not a done deal.

Since late October, several Fed officials have expressed caution about further rate cuts. Traders now see the probability of a December rate cut as less than one-third.

The October meeting minutes stated: "Several participants judged that, if the economy performed about in line with their expectations over the next two meetings, a further reduction in the target range for the federal funds rate at the December meeting could be appropriate. However, many participants indicated that, in their economic outlooks, maintaining the target range unchanged for the remainder of this year was more appropriate."

In the Fed's terminology, "many" implies a larger number than "several," suggesting a weaker inclination towards a December rate cut.

However, "participants" are not equivalent to "voting members." There were 19 participants in the meeting, but only 12 had voting rights. Therefore, the final stance of the voting members regarding December action cannot be determined.

For example, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan publicly expressed opposition to the rate cut after the October meeting. However, Logan does not have a vote on monetary policy this year, even though she participates in FOMC discussions.

The minutes also noted that "most participants" believed further rate cuts would be appropriate in the future, but not necessarily in December.

From the perspective of Fed officials, the current slowdown in the US labor market and the fact that inflation "showed few signs of sustainably returning to the 2 percent target" are causes for concern.

The minutes wrote: "Against this background, many participants supported reducing the target range for the federal funds rate at this meeting, some also supported that decision but would also have been okay with maintaining the current rate, and a few opposed the reduction."

The core of the debate lies in how "restrictive" the current monetary policy actually is. Some officials believe that even after a 25 basis point cut, policy remains too restrictive for economic growth. Others, however, believe that the "resilience of economic activity" suggests that policy is not restrictive.