The latest Market Talks covering Technology, Media and Telecom. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires at 4:20 ET, 12:20 ET and 16:50 ET.
1416 ET - Demand for new vehicles has declined year-over-year for the seventh consecutive month as gas prices continue to rise, according to a new report from CarGurus. Affordability pressures are shaping the market for car-buying, the report says. The average listing prices of new vehicles rose 1% to cross back over $50,000 in April while overall new car demand fell 8%. The share of lower-priced inventory meanwhile is shrinking, the report says. Demand for used vehicles picked up earlier this year but has since moderated and slipped in April. Interest in electric vehicles and hybrids has picked up in the wake of rising gas prices, the report says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)
1339 ET - Hims & Hers Health is in the midst of another big spending year that's putting pressure on its margins, but the investments should become long-term differentiators for the telehealth company, BofA Securities analysts say in a note. The analysts say they are particularly optimistic about the investments Hims & Hers is making in verticalizing its supply chain and scaling internationally. "HIMS' investments in these areas position the company to exploit the peptide opportunity (to the extent they are able to) and become a global platform of choice for large pharma," the analysts say. However, in the near-term, Wall Street's estimates look too high, the analysts say, backing their neutral rating on the stock and lowering their price target to $30 from $32, pointing in part to execution risks related to the investments. Hims & Hers Health slides nearly 14%.(kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
1025 ET - Delivery Hero chief executive and co-founder Niklas Ostberg's stepping down is likely due to a persistent weak share price and broad shareholder discontent, Stifel's Clement Genelot writes. However, the timing is surprising given uncertainty over the food-delivery company's shareholder structure until Prosus's mandatory stake cut to below 10% is completed by August. Aspex--which is the company's second-largest shareholder with a 14.3% stake--is likely to play a key role in candidate selection. "Especially since we struggle to identify an obvious internal successor for the CEO role," Genelot says. The company said Ostberg will step down by March next year. Shares are up 3% at 24.31 euros. (ian.walker@wsj.com)
0953 ET - Bitcoin's resilience in staying above the $80,000 mark despite a hotter-than-expected CPI report, is a sign of further price upside ahead, says Matt Mena of 21shares. "The fact that BTC has not broken down on this print is arguably more telling than the number itself--the market was positioned for hot, absorbed it, and is still sitting above the $80k support level," says Mena. "With these macro headwinds out the way, we can finally see Bitcoin retest the $82k resistance level and push to $85k." Mena adds that voting on the CLARITY Act in the Senate could also be a catalyst for an impending price surge, which could go as high as $90,000. BTC is down 1.4% to $80,682. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
0938 ET - It's too early to call for an "altcoin season," says Coinbase Research in a note. "Altcoin season" is typically seen when there is a strong rotation of capital out of mainstays like bitcoin and stablecoins into riskier alternatives--in hopes of capturing larger speculative gains. Many L1 tokens--tokens that trade using their own base blockchain instead of the blockchains of other larger coins--have seen strong gains recently, but not enough to declare a trend, says Coinbase. "Altcoin open-interest dominance has fallen to the lowest level in years… meaning altcoin leverage has not rebuilt alongside the stabilization in token valuations," says the firm. "This is therefore a majors & bitcoin-led market with improving institutional demand, not yet an 'alt season'." (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
0934 ET - Major cryptocurrencies are under pressure this morning, pulling back from recent gains that many L1 blockchains saw late last week and this past weekend. However, bitcoin remains above the $80,000 threshold, and is in fact trading at $80,864. In addition to the increased demand for BTC coming from ETFs, bitcoin is also seeing more "conviction buyers"--wallets that accumulate BTC and "HODL" in lieu of actively trading it. Citing data from BitGo Research, analysts with Bitfinex say that these buyers are purchasing the most bitcoin they have since the Covid-19 pandemic. "Prior peaks in this metric have historically preceded major price recoveries, as reduced sell-side pressure from long-term holders tightens available supply," says Bitfinex. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
0609 ET - Vodafone Group's fiscal 2026 performance had some positives but its share-price decline following the results is a reminder that it should continue to strive for more, AJ Bell's Dan Coatsworth writes in a note. "After years of going nowhere in stock market terms, Vodafone has been rewarded for its strategic progress over the past year," he says. The U.K. telecommunications company's German unit continued to demonstrate it had overcome the impact of regulatory headwinds despite subscriber losses, he notes. Additionally, Vodafone has delivered strong growth in less mature markets in Africa where its operations are achieving double-digit increases in service revenue, he says. However, "today's market reaction is a reminder it cannot sit on its laurels," he adds. shares are down 5.3% at 1.14 pounds. (najat.kantouar@wsj.com)
0525 ET - Vodafone Group's overall results are solid but a key performance metric in Germany appears weak, ING's Jan Frederik Slijkerman says in a note. While the company posted revenue growth in the country during the fourth quarter, it still reported customer losses in Germany, he notes. Additionally, the lower end of the London-listed company's adjusted free cash flow guidance for fiscal 2027 looks cautious, given that it is similar to the previous fiscal year, he says. Vodafone shares are down 3.2% at 1.17 pounds.(najat.kantouar@wsj.com)
0435 ET - As artificial intelligence moves to everyday deployment from training, the hardware requirement is expanding, Saxo Markets chief strategist Charu Chanana says in a note. Besides accelerators, AI also needs CPUs to coordinate tasks, memory to keep data close to compute, storage to hold rising data volumes, servers to deploy workloads, and optical/networking infrastructure to move data quickly, the strategist says. "AI is changing the tech landscape by broadening the opportunity beyond the obvious GPU winners," she says. As CPUs make a comeback, it's about whether mature hardware categories become more relevant as AI computing demand shifts to inferencing, she adds. (sherry.qin@wsj.com)
0124 ET - UMS Integration's 2026 prospects appear brighter, buoyed by strong projected key customer orders and sustained AI-driven demand for semiconductor and advanced packaging equipment, says DBS Group Research's Lee Keng Ling in a note. The Singapore-listed company's main key customer in its semiconductor segment is projected to grow its equipment business by more than 20%, while another customer appears to be diverting its U.S. supply sourcing to Asia, the analyst notes. Meanwhile, the aerospace business is likely to be supported by resilient global aviation demand, rising aircraft orders and a record industry backlog, she adds. She projects UMS's earnings growth for 2026 at 42%, with a further 25% in 2027. DBS retains a buy rating and S$2.92 target price, noting UMS is its top sector pick. Shares surge 14% to S$2.70.(megan.cheah@wsj.com)
0117 ET - SK Hynix is set to report stronger-than-expected 2Q earnings driven by higher memory-chip prices, HSBC Global Research's Ricky Seo says. The analyst expects average selling prices for the company's DRAM products to rise 40% on quarter in the April-June period. That would be faster than his earlier estimate of 28%, driven by price hikes for chips used in data servers, mobile handsets, and personal computers, as well as a rebound in prices for high-bandwidth-memory-3E chips used in artificial-intelligence applications, Seo says. He raises his operating-profit forecasts for the company by 14% to 65 trillion won for 2Q and by 13% to 265 trillion won for 2026. (kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com)
2217 ET - China's AI industry is entering a new phase that's more defined by capturing value and less by catching up in capabilities, Morgan Stanley analysts say in a note. The narrative has shifted to inference, application and real earnings, they add. China is optimizing for speed, cost efficiency and system-level integration. MS estimates China's semiconductor self-sufficiency rate, which stands at 41% last year, to continue to improve to 86% by 2030. AI will also become a medium-term productivity lever and lift China's total factor productivity growth by around 3 percentage points over the next decade. This is likely to bring GDP growth rate 3.5 percentage points higher in 2035 than without AI adoption, they say. (jiahui.huang@wsj.com; @ivy_jiahuihuang)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 12, 2026 16:50 ET (20:50 GMT)
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