On bulls and bears

While $Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$  and $C3.ai, Inc.(AI)$  may not be the poster boy like Nvidia for artificial intelligence, I like the duo for carving out their niches in the big data analytics and enterprise AI spaces. Among the first movers in rolling out AI solutions, Palantir and C3.ai are well-positioned to tap on the growing demands for AI applications. Well-known for its close collaborations with the US government, over the last couple of years Palantir has made a deliberate effort to expand beyond the public sector, and indeed the strategy is paying off as it has been enjoying impressive growth in the private sector. Likewise, amidst rapid acceleration of digital transformation being all the rage since the onset of the COVID pandemic, C3.ai has found itself in the centre of rising demands for enterprise AI applications.

An increasingly competitive domestic electric vehicle market is weighing on the Chinese EV trio $NIO Inc.(NIO)$  , $XPeng Inc.(XPEV)$  and $Li Auto(LI)$ , as more players jump onto the EV bandwagon, most notably Xiaomi, while the incumbent EVs manufactured by BYD are becoming commonplace on the roads. Few are able to sustain narrowing margins as BYD flexes its financial muscles and sells highly affordable EVs to squeeze out competition.With a stagnant pie and more trying to snatch a bigger slice of it, competition is likely to stay intense. As NIO, XPENG and LI struggles to find enough buyers to drive growth, the weak demands will continue to weigh on their stock prices.