Chips Watch & AI boosts ASML shares jumped 10% (before closing up 5%) after a Reuters report indicated the U.S. might exempt allies, including Japan, the Netherlands, and South Korea, from new China chip export restrictions.  This boosted semiconductor stocks, with ASML trading 7% higher. Meanwhile, Nvidia shares soared 12.81% Wednesday after Microsoft and AMD signaled strong AI server demand.  Microsoft's increased capital expenditures and AMD's impressive Q2 earnings of 69 cents per share on $5.84 billion revenue eased overspending concerns. Meta reported strong Q2 sales, driven by AI-powered ads, boosting shares. This progress underscores the effectiveness of Meta’s AI investments in delivering targeted and personalised advertisements. Meta shares rallied over 7% afte

Nike in Trouble  $Nike(NKE)$ -6.90% Nike is facing criticism and a market backlash following the release of its controversial England soccer kit design, coupled with disappointing sales figures in China. This double blow underscores challenges in balancing brand innovation with tradition and market expectations.  Nike shares fell by 6.9% after the company's fiscal Q3 revenue showed a slight y-o-y increase, but warned of challenging sales in the first half of fiscal 2025. 

I predict the price of Reddit on Thursday 21 March 2024 will close at $63.00

$Adobe(ADBE)$  Adobe Drops on Weak Forecast Fueled by AI Competition Fears Adobe's stock dropped 10.5% in extended trading after giving a weak outlook for sales in the current quarter. The market is concerned about increasing competition from AI-focused startups, which poses a competitive threat to Adobe. The following is a summary of the Adobe Inc. (ADBE) Q1 2024 Earnings: Financial Performance *Adobe reported Q1 revenue of $5.18 billion, a 12% increase YoY *GAAP earnings per share for the quarter was $1.36, and non-GAAP earnings per share was $4.48, representing 18% YoY growth. *Adobe achieved a net new Digital Media ARR of $432 million and revenue of $3.82 billion in Q1, marking a 13% growth YoY. *Adobe achieved $3.07 billion in revenue fo

Oracle stock up on impressive cloud revenue $Oracle(ORCL)$ jumped 14% after-hours following the announcement of mixed financial results and a quarterly cash dividend of 40 cents per share. This surge was propelled by substantial new cloud contracts and AI demand, with Oracle CEO Safra Catz highlighting a record 29% growth in total remaining performance obligations, exceeding $80 billion. ORCL also reported a whopping $12.3 billion in free cash flow for the past twelve . Oracle stock has now gained roughly 50% over the past twelve months.  Oracle Q3 earnings snapshot *Earned $2.4 billion versus the year-ago $1.89 billion *Per-share earnings also climbed from 68 to 85 cents *Adjusted EPS printed at $1.41 as per the earnings report *Revenue jump

$NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$   +4.00% Nvidia reached over $2 trillion value on the stock market for the first time on Friday.  This happened because Dell Technologies shared a strong outlook and expects more people to buy its servers that use Nvidia's technology for artificial intelligence. Nvidia's stock added 4% after Dell, which sells high-end servers of Nvidia's processors, gave an upbeat forecast late on Thursday, pointing to a surge in orders for its AI-optimized servers. Dell's shares soared 38% to a record high before ending the session with a 32% gain. Friday's rally put Nvidia's market capitalization at $2.06 trillion, making it Wall Street's third most valuable company behind Microsoft (NAS

OpenAI closes deal valuing it at US$80b OpenAI has concluded a deal with investors that reportedly values the California startup at US$80 billion or more, after a roller-coaster year for the inventor of ChatGPT. The agreement, reported by The New York Times but not yet confirmed by OpenAI, would mean the value of the company – a world leader in generative artificial intelligence – would have nearly tripled in under 10 months. The reported deal would have the San Francisco-based firm selling existing shares to investors led by Thrive Capital. It would permit executives and employees to sell shares at a highly favourable price, just three months after the firm survived a major crisis when company co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman was fired and then brought back only days later.

OpenAI Takes on Google, Meta with New AI Products, and Other Tech News Today Another day brings another salvo in the artificial-intelligence wars. No sooner had Alphabet introduced an upgrade to its AI model than OpenAI struck back with a new video-generation tool and was reported to be taking aim at the search-engine market. The buzzy public announcement from Microsoft-backed OpenAI was the launch of its text-to-video AI tool Sora. While only open to a small number of researchers, academics and visual artists so far, the resulting creations look impressive. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman late on Thursday posted various videos generated from prompts sent in by users of social-media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Text-to-video creation is one of the areas where rivals such as Alphabet's Goog

Adobe Tumbles As OpenAI Invades Its Turf With Video Creation Tool Adobe (ADBE) shares tumbled Friday after high-profile artificial intelligence startup OpenAI introduced a new text-to-video generator. ADBE stock plunged more than 7% on the news. San Francisco-based OpenAI on Thursday introduced Sora, which can create lifelike videos from simple text descriptions. Earlier OpenAI services can create written articles and images from basic prompts. Sora is able to generate complex video scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background, the company said. It currently can generate videos up to a minute long. But Sora is still in testing and not yet available for public use. "Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand an

Google Matches ChatGPT With New Chatbot Subscription Google is jumping into the tech industry's latest craze: subscription chatbots. The search giant will begin charging $19.99 a month for its most powerful chatbot, Gemini Advanced, as part of a subscription plan that also grants access to extra file storage and other perks. Gemini Advanced is the latest update to the chatbot Google released a few months after the sudden rise of OpenAI's ChatGPT caught the company flat-footed, despite its reputation as a pioneer in artificial-intelligence research. Microsoft, the largest backer of OpenAI, last month released a subscription chatbot catering to individual users of its work software. The new Gemini Advanced offering is Google's attempt to directly profit from growing consumer interest in AI s

The Magnificent Seven Are Looking Magnificent In November.  The Magnificent Seven stocks -- Amazon.com, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla -- have been looking magnificent overall in November so far. With the Nasdaq composite staging a follow-through day on Nov. 1 and the S&P 500 on Nov. 2, the Magnificent Seven are fueling the newly confirmed market rally. The megacaps have been big winners in 2023 and are all outpacing the S&P 500's 5.2% gain so far this month. All but Google stock is besting the Nasdaq's 7.1% November gain. All of these stocks are major S&P 500 and Nasdaq components. While Nvidia and Microsoft are at the forefront of the AI boom, Meta, Google and Amazon are making their own AI push, with Tesla claiming AI intentio

Tech titans face earnings heat amid bond yield surge Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla are driving a 12% gain in the S&P 500 . But they face pressure from rising bond yields, which have caused their valuations to surge (average forward P/E ratio of 33.5 vs. S&P 500's 18.3). Tesla's stock dropped 9% after disappointing Q3 results. While mega-cap companies are expected to see a 32.8% earnings increase in 2023, the rest of the S&P 500 is predicted to decline by 2.3%, according to LSEG.

Canon’s new technology competes with ASML in chip manufacturing The new system, FPA-1200NZ2C, can produce 5 nanometer semiconductors and scale down to 2 nm, surpassing the capabilities of the A17 Pro chip found in Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Canon, the Japanese company known for its printers and cameras, unveiled an innovative solution on Friday, Oct. 13, which is designed to aid in the production of cutting-edge semiconductor components. According to a report from CNBC, Canon’s recently introduced “nanoimprint lithography” system represents the company’s competitive response to Dutch firm ASML, a dominant force in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine sector. ASML’s machinery is essential for producing cutting-edge chips, including those used in the latest Apple iPhones

Google Search Gets Generative AI Boost: You Can Now Generate Images Just Like Bing In an innovative move, Google is trialing generative AI functionalities for its search tool, aiming to allow users to generate images and write drafts straight from the search engine. Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google announced on Thursday that it is exploring new avenues to boost its search engine's utility. The tech giant's users could soon create an image or draft a write-up using generative AI.

Microsoft's $69B Activision Blizzard Acquisition Gets Green Light From UK Antitrust Regulator The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in Britain has approved the proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc ATVI by Microsoft Corporation MSFT. This approval comes after Microsoft made concessions to allay competition fears. Microsoft has secured the approval after agreeing to sell Activision's game streaming rights, including the popular "Call of Duty," to Ubisoft Entertainment.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI is Courting Developers Microsoft-backed OpenAI is set to release significant updates for developers next month. The updates aim to reduce the cost and time required to develop software applications based on their artificial intelligence (AI) models, Reuters reported. OpenAI is expected to announce the new features, with the ultimate goal of boosting sales, at its first-ever developer conference in San Francisco on November 6, 2023. One of the updates includes the addition of memory storage for using AI models, which can cut down on costs for application makers by up to 20 times. In this regard, OpenAI is working on the release of a stateful API (Application Program Interface), which will allow storage of the conversation history of inquiries. Furthermo

Apple's Easy Google Money May Get Harder to Keep Google is the Silicon Valley company most associated with "moonshots," but Apple might someday need one of its own -- replacing Google. The two have long been rivals, particularly since their Android and iOS platforms dominate the world's mobile operating system market. But they are also joined at the hip through a lucrative agreement under which Google pays Apple billions of dollars annually to be the default search option on the company's Safari internet browser. That gives Google preferential access to Apple's iOS users while giving Apple a steady and high-margin revenue stream for its vital services business, which now accounts for 21% of its revenue and 35% of its gross income. Neither company has ever been wild about discussing the arr

Dojo, the cornerstone of Tesla's AI empire: born for video data training, paving the way to general artificial intelligence (AGI) On September 11th, local time Tesla stocks surged more than 10%, increasing to 122% during the year, and market capitalization increased by USD 79.6 billion in a single day to USD 868.3 billion. The lead that ignited the surge came from a Morgan Stanley report — Damo pointed out that the Dojo supercomputer would increase Tesla's market value by as much as USD500 billion, while raising Tesla's benchmark price target price to USD400. For reference, after a sharp rise on Monday, Tesla's stock price closed at USD273.58. Analysts Adam Jonas and Daniela M Haigian's team pointed out in the report that autonomous driving systems are known as the “mother of artificial in

Google Antitrust Case: Why Apple Will Be Part Of The Courtroom Drama Google parent Alphabet has a lot at stake in the Department of Justice's non-jury antitrust trial, which starts Tuesday. While there's risk for GOOGL stock in the outcome, Apple will be part of the courtroom drama as well. The trial is expected to take 10 weeks and last until mid-November. The case will be decided by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. He could order a Google breakup or changes to the way Google promotes its search engine. That includes Google's contract with Apple, which makes Google the default search engine on its Safari web browser. Morgan Stanley estimated that Google paid Apple $15 billion to $20 billion in traffic acquisition costs in 2022 under the search engine deal. For investors, "the key question

Meta Platforms is launching an open-source artificial-intelligence model in partnership with Microsoft. It's a sign of increasing competition in the AI sector which could limit the share of revenue won by the giant technology companies. Companies such as Meta Platforms (ticker: META) and International Business Machines (IBM) are offering access to AI models allowing the companies to create their own software. They hope they can win over customers from Microsoft (MSFT) and Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL), which disclose lesser details about how their own AI models operate. Meta's new AI language model, named Llama 2, is being released as free open-source software, which means it can be used, modified, and shared. It will be available to companies for the first time via Microsoft's cloud-comp