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MSFT | Microsoft exposed 250M customer support records | Microsoft MSFT 0 1 discloses a database error that temporarily exposed approximately 250M customer support records
Security researchers found the flaw on December 29 and Microsoft fixed the problem two days later
Microsoft says the exposure was due to a misconfiguration of an internal customer support database
The company found no evidence of malicious use | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft CEO Fears U S China Mistrust Will Hurt Global Growth | Bloomberg Sign up here to receive the Davos Diary a special daily newsletter that will run from Jan 20 24
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Corp s chief executive officer said he worries that mistrust between the U S and China will increase technology costs and hurt economic growth at a critical time
Using the 470 billion semiconductor industry as an example of a sector that is already globally interconnected Satya Nadella said the two countries will have to find ways to work together rather than creating different supply chains for each country
All you are doing is increasing transaction costs for everybody if you completely separate Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor in Chief John Micklethwait at Bloomberg s The Year Ahead conference in Davos That s a concern as the executive said the world is on the cusp of a revolution around technology and artificial intelligence
If we take steps back in trust or increase transaction costs around technology all we are doing is sacrificing global economic growth he said
The Trump administration is considering steps to further limit the ability of U S companies to supply Huawei Technologies Co China s flagship tech company in addition to pressuring countries around the world to avoid using its equipment for 5G mobile networks
The agreement signed last week between the U S and China was not sufficient said Nadella but represented progress on the issue of intellectual property protections for U S technology companies working with China
Two Internets
Nadella said he worries about the development of two separate internets noting that to some degree they already exist and they will get amplified in the future with massive technology companies already in place in China
The viewpoint clashes with Microsoft co founder Bill Gates who has been skeptical about the idea that ongoing U S China trade tensions could ever lead to a bifurcated system of two internets
China and the U S are the two leading AI superpowers however the cooling political relations between them have slowed the international collaboration
Nadella also warned that countries that fail to attract immigrants will lose out as the global tech industry continues to grow The CEO has previously voiced concern about India s Citizenship Amendment Act which bans undocumented Muslim migrants from neighboring countries from seeking citizenship in India while allowing immigrants from other religions to do so calling it sad
Every country is rethinking what is in their national interest he said Governments need to maintain that modicum of enlightenment and not think about it very narrowly Nadella said adding that people will only come when people know you re an immigrant friendly country
However Nadella said he remained hopeful I m an India optimist he said The fact that there is a 70 year history of nation building I think it s a very strong foundation I grew up in that country I m proud of that heritage I m influenced by that experience
Carbon Issues
Microsoft has recently unveiled plans to invest 1 billion to back companies and organizations working on technologies to remove or reduce carbon from the atmosphere saying efforts to merely emit less carbon aren t enough to prevent catastrophic climate change
We will now have to make sure all our data center operations are first consuming renewable energy Nadella said
Microsoft and Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN along with other technology companies have been criticized for supplying software and cloud services to large oil and gas companies like Chevron Corp NYSE CVX and BP LON BP Plc BlackRock Inc NYSE BLK s Larry Fink has been trailed to work and public engagements by protesters decrying the investment firm for inaction on global warming and other issues
Activists have been pushing for companies to stop working with the largest produces of greenhouse gases BlackRock has said will cut exposure to thermal coal as the world s largest asset manager moves to address climate change
Nadella declined to comment on whether Microsoft would stop working with the major carbon producers The energy transition is going to include all of us he said | 1/21/2020 |
MSFT | Amazon asks court to pause Microsoft s work on Pentagon s JEDI contract | Reuters Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN said on Wednesday it filed a motion in court to pause the U S Department of Defense and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT from carrying out an up to 10 billion cloud computing deal until a court rules on its protest of the contract award Amazon originally considered to be the favorite to win the award had indicated last week that it would file a temporary restraining order to require the Pentagon and Microsoft to hold off beyond initial activities for the contract Known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud or JEDI the contract is intended to give the military better access to data and technology from remote locations In a statement Amazon s cloud division Amazon Web Services said It is common practice to stay contract performance while a protest is pending and it s important that the numerous evaluation errors and blatant political interference that impacted the JEDI award decision be reviewed The procurement process has been delayed by legal complaints and conflict of interest allegations Most recently Amazon has blamed U S President Donald Trump for bias against the company and for improperly pressuring the Pentagon
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has rejected that there was bias and said the Pentagon made its choice fairly and freely without external influence | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Intel Earnings Revenue Beat in Q4 on Data Center Business Strength | Investing com Intel NASDAQ INTC on Thursday reported a stronger than expected outlook on profit in the upcoming quarter after topping analysts estimates on both the top and bottom lines led by strong growth in its data center business
For the first quarter Intel said it expected to report earnings of 1 30 a share on revenue of 19 billion above estimates for earnings of 1 03 a share and revenue of 17 2 billion
Intel NASDAQ INTC announced earnings per share of 1 52 on revenue of 20 21 billion Analysts polled by Investing com anticipated EPS of 1 25 on revenue of 19 2 billion That compared with EPS of 1 28 on revenue of 18 66 billion in the same period a year earlier Intel had announced EPS of 1 42 on revenue of 19 19 billion in the previous quarter
The company attributed the stronger results to rising sales for chips used in data centers and growing demand for higher performance products used in personal computers and related devices
Revenue for its client computing group was up 1 9 to 10 01 billion Its higher margin data center business saw a 19 revenue increase to 7 2 billion
In 2019 we gained share in an expanded addressable market that demands more performance to process move and store data said Bob Swan Intel CEO One year into our long term financial plan we have outperformed our revenue and EPS expectations Looking ahead we are investing to win the technology inflections of the future play a bigger role in the success of our customers and increase shareholder returns
Intel NASDAQ INTC share s are up 5 8 for the year to date and is trading at 63 32 still down 0 60 from its 52 week high of 63 70 set on January 23
After the powerful rally this year in computer chip manufacturer shares these companies now have little room for error Investors have built a strong bullish case for the sector that went through a big selloff in 2018 after getting hurt by escalating trade war between the U S and China Intel NASDAQ INTC is certainly well positioned to take advantage of this strength Investing com analyst Haris Anwar said
In 3Q earnings report Intel NASDAQ INTC raised its full year guidance as it benefited from the surging investments in datacenters by large corporations such as Amazon NASDAQ NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft NASDAQ NASDAQ MSFT On the PC side things also look quite bright for Intel which is the largest parts supplier for the industry he said
Fourth quarter sales of personal computers were the best the industry has seen in years according to data released last week by market research firms IDC and Gartner he added With these positive catalysts Intel NASDAQ INTC needs to show that it s making progress in overcoming its production challenges and it is on track to bring to the market the most efficient and powerful chips in the highest volumes Intel s biggest competitive threat right now is coming from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing NYSE TSM which is quickly gaining market share
Stay up to date on all of the upcoming earnings reports by visiting Investing com s earnings calendar | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Intel signals 2020 will be a turnaround year for chip industry leader | By Stephen Nellis and Munsif Vengattil Reuters Intel Corp O INTC on Thursday cemented the market view that the chip industry is turning around after a prolonged slowdown forecasting better 2020 revenue and profit than Wall Street anticipated driven by cloud computing demand The company s sales in its closely watched data center business jumped 19 helping it beat fourth quarter profit and revenue estimates and sending its shares up 7 in extended trading Chief Financial Officer George Davis said in an interview that sales to cloud computing providers were up 48 year over year in the fourth quarter a trend expected to continue this year The Santa Clara California based chipmaker expects fiscal year 2020 revenue of about 73 5 billion more than 1 billion ahead of the Wall Street consensus according to IBES data from Refinitiv Davis did not name specific customers but so called hyperscale cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services O AMZN and Microsoft Corp O MSFT in the United States and Alibaba Group Holding N BABA and Baidu Inc O BIDU all purchase Intel chips for data centers whose capacity they rent out to large businesses What we re seeing is very strong demand from cloud players Davis told Reuters I have to give credit to the hyperscalers for this quarter Intel said its transition to a newer generation of chipmaking technology was progressing better than it expected and that it would boost its capacity to make chips for personal computers in a sign that the manufacturing woes that plagued the chipmakers over the past year were starting to ease We think this is going to help us close the gap to customer demand that we ve been experiencing We think all of this is going to be resolved in 2020 and we ll actually be able to start building inventory at the end of the year which we have not been able to do for two years Davis told Reuters Intel s positive outlook follows an upbeat forecast from chipmaker Texas Instruments O TXN on Wednesday and prediction last week of sharply higher chip demand at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd TWO 5425 Analysts view 2020 as a recovery year for semiconductors driven by 5G spending for both smartphones and network upgrades However Intel s Davis cautioned that the positive forecast was not directly attributable to the trade deal signed between U S and Chinese officials last week It s a little fresh to really have a good understanding of how that specific trade deal is going to have an impact on Intel s customers thinking Davis said But we like the demand signals we re getting After years of acquisitions outside its core area of processing chips under previous leaders Intel Chief Executive Bob Swan has set a goal of becoming more disciplined about spending slowing investments in areas like memory chips and shedding struggling businesses Intel has doubled down on its core markets such as personal computers and data centers both of which beat analysts fourth quarter expectations Revenue from Intel s client computing business which caters to PC makers and is still the biggest contributor to sales rose 2 to 10 billion in the fourth quarter beating FactSet estimates of 9 74 billion Shares in Advanced Micro Devices Inc O AMD Intel s biggest rival in the processor market rose about 0 8 after Intel s results AMD stock is up because Intel saw flattish PC demand even as PC units were up which implies AMD likely saw strong PC demand Cascend Securities analyst Eric Ross told Reuters Net revenue rose 8 3 to 20 21 billion beating estimate of 19 23 billion according to IBES data from Refinitiv
Excluding items the company earned 1 52 per share above estimates of 1 25 | 1/23/2020 |
INTC | Stocks S P Stumbles as U S Confirms Second Coronavirus Case | By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing com The S P fell Friday as reports of a second coronavirus case in the U S spooked sentiment amid fears that a further spread of the virus may dent global growth
The S P 500 fell 0 8 The Nasdaq Composite lost 0 7 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0 7
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the second case of the deadly virus that originated in China was detected in Illinois
With more than 900 confirmed cases of the flu like virus reported so far fears are rising that the virus in the event of widespread contagion could hurt economic growth and experts point to the impact of global growth from Ebola in 2014 Sars in 2003 and the Avian Flu virus in 1997
The virus jitters were most prevalent in energy as stocks slumped after oil prices fell sharply on concerns about weaker aviation fuel demand amid a stumble in tourism and air travel
American Airlines NASDAQ AAL and United Airlines fell 4 while Delta Air Lines NYSE DAL slipped 2
Boeing NYSE BA also added to wave of selling slipping 1 as on report that the aircraft maker was mulling further cuts to its 787 Dreamliner production
Tech was an exception to the selloff staying just above the flatline led by a surge in Intel NASDAQ INTC on bullish quarterly results a day earlier
American Express NYSE AXP also reported results that beat on both the top and bottom lines sending its shares about 3 higher | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Bytedance s TikTok hires Microsoft IP chief as general counsel | SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Popular mobile video app TikTok said on Friday it has hired attorney Erich Andersen from Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT to serve as the company s global general counsel reporting to president Alex Zhu Andersen was most recently Microsoft s chief intellectual property counsel bringing expertise in an area of key concern to TikTok as it builds out its music offerings He announced his departure last month in a LinkedIn NYSE LNKD post after more than 20 years at the tech giant TikTok owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance allows users to create and share short videos that can be set to snippets of songs from its music library After surging user growth last year the company is making a push to attract U S advertisers piloting in app shopping features and testing a creator marketplace to match brands and influencers But social marketing agencies told Reuters last month that some marketers are still wary of potential copyright issues that could arise from use of the app s music offerings TikTok said on Thursday it had inked a deal to expand its music library by partnering with Merlin a UK based digital rights group that negotiates licensing on behalf of more than 20 000 independent record labels and distributors
According to data from research firm Sensor Tower TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin have been downloaded more than 1 5 billion times including 680 million downloads in 2019 | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Four comma club Predicting the next company to join trillion dollar value elite | By Lewis Krauskopf NEW YORK Reuters The trillion dollar market cap club expanded last week to a third U S company with Google parent Alphabet Inc O GOOGL topping the lofty valuation mark Adding the next member however is likely to take a while Apple Inc O AAPL and Microsoft Corp O MSFT are also worth more than 1 trillion on the stock market And while Amazon com Inc O AMZN is currently worth around 935 billion the e commerce leader did cross the trillion dollar threshold briefly in September 2018 The next closest company is not within 300 billion of the mark but a handful companies could contend based on their current values Social media platform Facebook Inc O FB appears to have the pole position Its 630 billion market value is about 65 billion more than Berkshire Hathaway Inc N BRKa the next richest company in the S P 500 SPX But a lot can happen between now and 1 trillion and investors asked to handicap the field revealed different choices among the S P 500 SPX for which U S company will be the fifth member of the elite club The next to join also may not yet be on anyone s list Graphic Market cap heavyweights interactive Graphic Market heavyweights The following are among the top contenders to crack the 1 trillion market valuation mark FACEBOOK Current market cap 627 billion The social media company s stock price soared about 50 in the past year and while past performance is no predictor Facebook would top 1 trillion in just over a year if it keeps up that pace To get there Facebook must demonstrate the ability to monetize its user base beyond just selling ads King Lip chief strategist at Baker Avenue Wealth Management said in an email Greater scrutiny of tech companies over privacy and data policies could limit Facebook s growth and stock valuation according to investors Facebook is poised for above market growth said Margaret Reid senior portfolio manager at The Private Bank at Union Bank But that trillion dollar market cap might be further out the spectrum because of the regulatory environment for these technology platform companies she added BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY 561 billion Shares of Warren Buffett s conglomerate climbed more slowly than the broader market over the past few years with its Class A shares up 11 in 2019 against a gain of nearly 29 for the S P 500 Berkshire s growth rate is less exciting their valuation less likely to expand meaningfully according to emailed comments from Jason Ware chief investment officer with Albion Financial Group who called the diversified company s earnings power and economic competitive advantages airtight They ll likely hit 1 trillion eventually but they are the tortoise in this story VISA 446 billion Soaring stock prices have propelled Visa Inc N V and rival payments processing company Mastercard Inc N MA up the market cap chart Both could surpass Facebook in market value three years from now if all three companies maintained their average annual stock price increases of the past three years With Visa shares trading at over 30 times forward 12 month earnings estimates and above their 10 year average market premium according to Refinitiv Datastream some investors are wary about its valuation Albion s Ware said Visa s dominance in the credit and debit markets has afforded them highly visible recurring revenues and earnings and thus a stable market premium If Visa s P E ratio stays stable or expands Ware said the company could reach 1 trillion before many might expect JP MORGAN 428 billion JP Morgan Chase Co N JPM ranks as the largest U S bank by market value by well over 100 billion Paul Nolte portfolio manager at Kingsview Investment Management said in an email that the bank could grow even bigger There will be some legislative issues with a very large JP Morgan Nolte said But continued consolidation within the banking sector along with international competition could push the large to get even larger Graphic Top U S companies by market cap | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Edison reinventing PBA as bowling s new kingpin | By Steve Keating Reuters In the 1960s and 70s when ten pin bowling was in its heyday the sport s best players earned as much or more than top baseball and football players and Professional Bowlers Association PBA kingpin Colie Edison believes it can be that way again Once a house guest on the MTV reality series The Real World most would think Edison is living in dreamland if she reckons professional bowling will ever return to its golden era In those days Dick Weber was as well known as Chicago Bears linebacker Dick Butkus and Don Mr Bowling Carter was the first athlete in any sport to ink a 1 million sponsorship deal But Edison is convinced bowlers will again be household names the PBA CEO predicting that broadcast rights will one day be in line with other top North American leagues and prize money worthy of a sport eager to be seen as big time My main goal is to make bowling relevant again and we re going to do that by exposing the product to more people getting people to think about bowling more Edison told Reuters Heading into the 2020 season there is going to be the most bowling on broadcast television in decades What you remember from those good old days on ABC we are heading back in that direction For decades the only direction bowling and the PBA had been headed was down MAINSTREAM SPORT Invented in ancient Egypt bowling went from the Alley of Pharaohs to a mainstream sport in the U S television doing what it also did for golf in the 1960s bringing a new audience and interest Bowling alleys sprung up on almost every corner 12 000 of them by the end of the 60s with nearly 4 5 million Americans taking up membership in the U S Bowling Congress USBC the sport s national governing body Today the USBC membership is less than half that while the millions who religiously tuned into ABC on Saturday afternoons to watch their bowling stars turned off and ratings slumped But Bowlero Corp the world s largest owner and operator of bowling centers and FOX Sports are betting on a revival on the lanes Last September Bowlero acquired the PBA from Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT executive Mike Slade and FOX signed on as the new broadcast partner The moves have had an immediate impact and appear to have halted the downward trend with television ratings jumping 100 from 2018 The PBA also awarded its first six figure winner s purse since 2011 last year and this season boasts a record 2 1 million combined prize fund While the increase in prize money will be welcomed by bowlers the PBA has a long way to go before it is on a par with the PGA Tour which is offering a 7 5 million purse this week at the Farmers Insurance Open or tennis where the singles champions at the Australian Open will earn 2 85 million There is a lot of room for growth said Edison What we will be focusing on this year is that rich storytelling and character development We have our majors our Masters our U S Open the traditional events but we are embracing change NEW GENERATION In her dual role of PBA CEO and Bowlero s Chief Customer Officer CCO Edison who began her climb up the Bowlero corporate ladder booking deejays for events plans to use the PBA as a vehicle to drive a new generation of bowlers into their alleys and in turn use the centers to promote the PBA Already part of the Pan Am Games program Edison will join the effort to get bowling into the Olympics There will be new competitions new ways of storytelling and hopefully a new cast of characters who could become the face of the sport like Weber who was a late night show regular and once bowled in the cargo hold of a Boeing NYSE BA 707 in what was promoted as Operation AstroBowl the highest altitude game ever played As a one time reality TV show personality Edison is keenly aware of the ability of crossover characters to draw attention to a product Jason Belmonte the world s top ranked bowler who bowls using two hands could be one of those marquee names the sport needs but the problem is most Americans would not know the Australian if he bowled a perfect game in New York s Times Square NYSE SQ outside Edison s office He is our Tiger Woods Edison said of Belmonte the winner of 11 bowling majors He is the new era of bowling and really unique in that he bowls with two hands When you mine the profiles of our bowlers you will find there are some really great stories and characters and it is just about bringing that out
This story fixes typo in second paragraph | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Wall Street Week Ahead Hopes are high for tech stock Cadillacs so are their prices | By Sin ad Carew New York Reuters Wall Street is betting that the most popular U S technology and internet stocks can keep outshining the broader equities market but their latest rally leaves little room for error this earnings season Investors dashed for the exits after Tuesday s less than stellar quarterly report from Netflix O NFLX the N in FAANG an acronym for the group of U S tech companies that have been the biggest drivers of the bull market Hopes remained high for the other FAANGs Facebook O FB Apple O AAPL Amazon com O AMZN and Google parent Alphabet O GOOGL as well as Microsoft O MSFT ahead of their financial reports Daniel Morgan portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta Georgia describes the group as the Cadillacs of the technology sector and said they should keep providing an outsized boost to the S P 500 They re still going to be the show business highlight stocks that everybody focuses on and I expect them to do well said Morgan a long time technology stock investor Analysts also see the group reporting faster revenue growth than the broader S P 500 for the December quarter and faster earnings growth in some cases However with recent gains among most of the group far outstripping the broader market general equity strategists say the market s superstars may need to provide outsize positive surprises in their quarterly numbers and their forecasts for future growth In comparison to the S P 500 s gain of roughly 12 from the start of October to Thursday s close Apple rose about 43 while Facebook climbed about 24 and Google jumped almost 22 just beating Microsoft s 20 advance We do believe there could be downside for the stocks if they do not over deliver on earnings and narrative said John Augustine chief investment officer at Huntington National Bank in Columbus Ohio To push the stocks higher from here both earnings and guidance need to beat expectations Here is a graphic looking at valuations for the group compared with the S P 500 over the last year The S P 500 s fourth quarter earnings are expected to decline 0 8 and revenue is seen rising 4 4 according the latest estimates gathered by Refinitiv In comparison Apple earnings for its fiscal first quarter ended in December are seen rising 8 7 while revenue could climb 4 8 year on year when it releases results on Jan 28 In comparison Facebook due to release fourth quarter numbers on Jan 29 is expected to report earnings growth of 6 2 on revenue that is estimated to grow 23 4 year on year On the same day Microsoft is expected to post an earnings gain of 20 on revenue that is seen rising 9 9 for its fiscal second quarter ended in Dec On Jan 30 Amazon com is expected to report a revenue rise of 18 7 in the same timeframe although earnings per share are seen declining more than 30 because it announced it would beef up investment in its package delivery business during the fourth quarter The last of the group due to report Google s parent Alphabet is expected to announce a decline of 1 7 for fourth quarter earnings and a revenue increase of 19 5 in its Feb 3 release Of all the group Morgan at Synovus favors Amazon most as he expects strong growth and profit margins in its cloud computing business Plus the stock has underperformed its peers and the S P 500 with a 8 6 gain since early October Kim Forrest chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh favors Microsoft because of its great suite of products with no true replacement but also cites a solid outlook for Facebook Apple Amazon and Alphabet They re core holdings for so many managers that they would have to have serious issues for them to be sold Plus when people buy an index they are buying a lot of these companies given the market weight cap of an index said Forrest But she added They need to have a good enough quarter and forecast a better 2020 and be able to list the reasons why it ll be better than 2019 Ken Mahoney chief executive of Mahoney Asset Management in Chestnut Ridge New York said Netflix faces tough new competition from companies including Apple and Walt Disney Co N DIS but the rest of the group have wide moats including consistent growth and strong balance sheets But he is not buying more of the group arguing that valuations are too high
I d look to add on some of these names in a pullback said Mahoney | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Set for Biggest Drop Since October on Virus Markets Wrap | Bloomberg The spread of a deadly respiratory virus rattled global markets sending U S stocks lower and fueling demand for havens in government bonds and gold Oil fell for a fourth day on concern the outbreak will dent economic growth
The S P 500 Index headed for its biggest drop since October amid reports that U S officials had confirmed two more cases of the illness which originated in China and has also spread to Japan South Korea and Singapore Benchmark Treasury yields fell to a three month low while the dollar advanced for a second day
Investors are exercising caution with stocks close to all time highs cognizant of the chance the respiratory virus migrates across the world and develops into a more devastating pandemic like the SARS illness that emerged 17 years ago Officials in China boosted travel restrictions to cover 40 million people to contain the virus s spread
The market has been reacting to headlines but no one really has much information in terms of how bad it will get said Marvin Loh senior global macro strategist at State Street NYSE STT It is affecting some of the growth expectations because ultimately that s how it will manifest itself in the numbers But it s a moderate reaction at best it s not like people are panicking
In company news United Airlines Holdings Inc and American Airlines NASDAQ AAL Group Inc each slid more than 4 on concern the virus will limit demand for air travel and tourism Financial shares also sank with Citigroup Inc NYSE C down 2 as UBS warned the sector could be hurt by less credit card spending and a decline in cross border payments
Health shares were among the worst performers Friday on growing fears that upcoming elections in the U S may prompt lawmakers to take action on the increasing cost of medicines in the U S Chipmakers were a rare bright spot after Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC gave bullish revenue forecasts
Elsewhere the pound slipped for a second day versus the dollar giving back some of its rally from earlier in the week
These are the main moves in markets
Stocks
The S P 500 Index fell 1 as of 1 49 p m New York time The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0 9 The MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index fell 0 1 Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0 2 The British pound declined 0 3 to 1 3078 The euro fell 0 3 to 1 1027 The Japanese yen rose 0 2 to 109 32 per dollar Bonds
The yield on 10 year Treasuries fell five basis points 1 69 Britain s 10 year yield dipped three basis points to 0 56 Germany s 10 year yield fell three basis points to 0 34 Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude declined 2 3 to 54 31 a barrel Gold rose 0 4 to 1 578 20 an ounce | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | Stocks S P Hurt by Wave of Selling as Virus Spreads | By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing com The S P ended the week deep in the red as new cases of the coronavirus beyond China s borders stoked contagion fears prompting traders to rein in their bullish bets on stocks
The S P 500 lost 0 9 while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0 9 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 0 6
Signs that virus is spreading took a toll on investor sentiment with France reporting its maiden case of the outbreak and a second case identified in the U S
Confirmed cases of the flu like virus have reached 900 so far and are likely to increase further intensifying fears that areas of the market sensitive to a decline in tourism and air travel are in for rocky ride
American Airlines NASDAQ AAL and United Airlines NASDAQ UAL closed sharply lower while Delta Air Lines NYSE DAL slipped 2 4
Wynn Resorts NASDAQ WYNN and Las Vegas Sands NYSE LVS fell 3 and 2 respectively
Following the turn in sentiment financials come under pressure as investors snapped up Treasuries pushing yields sharply lower
JPMorgan NYSE JPM Citigroup NYSE C and Goldman Sachs NYSE GS closed more than 1 lower as a slump in bond yields tends to keep a lid on net interest margin
Energy stocks meanwhile were pressured by an ongoing rout in oil prices amid fears that further outbreaks of the virus may halt air travel and lessen demand for jet fuel
Against the sea of red however Intel NASDAQ INTC pared some gains ending 8 higher buoyed by bullish quarterly results
American Express NYSE AXP also reported results that beat on both the top and bottom lines sending its shares about 3 higher | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | The S P 500 has worst day since October as virus fears mount | By Stephen Culp NEW YORK Reuters Wall Street fell in a broad sell off on Friday as investors fled equities on growing concerns over the scope of the coronavirus outbreak capping the S P 500 s worst week in six months All three major U S stock averages turned sharply negative with the S P 500 seeing its biggest one day percentage drop in over three months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the second case of the virus on U S soil this time in Chicago S P 500 and Dow wrapped up their worst week since August and the Nasdaq snapped a six week winning streak Market participants kept a wary eye on developments surrounding the coronavirus which the World Health Organization WHO deemed an emergency in China having now killed 26 people and infected more than 800 on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday Markets hate uncertainty and the virus has been enough to inject uncertainty in the markets said David Carter chief investment officer at Lenox Wealth Advisors in New York But some analysts believe the investors were looking for a reason to take money off the table The virus is really more an excuse to take profits right now said Sam Stovall chief investment strategist of CFRA Research in New York Paul Nolte portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago agreed The markets are expensive and were looking for a reason to go down and the virus is the excuse to do it Intel Corp s O INTC stock surged 8 1 after reporting jumps in data center and cloud computing revenue and forecasting better than expected 2020 earnings Consumer credit company American Express Co N AXP benefited from a robust U S retail sales environment posting a better than expected 9 annual revenue increase Its stock advanced 2 8 Fourth quarter reporting season is well under way with 74 companies in the S P 500 having reported 68 2 of which have beaten Wall Street estimates according to Refinitiv data Analysts now expect earnings to have contracted by 0 5 on aggregate in the October to December quarter Next week a swarm of closely watched results are expected notably from Apple Inc O AAPL McDonald s Corp N MCD Starbucks Corp O SBUX Tesla Inc O TSLA Amazon com Inc O AMZN Boeing Co N BA Facebook Inc O FB and Caterpillar Inc N CAT among others The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 170 36 points or 0 58 to 28 989 73 the S P 500 SPX lost 30 09 points or 0 90 to 3 295 45 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 87 57 points or 0 93 to 9 314 91 Of the 11 major sectors in the S P 500 all but utilities SPLRCU ended the session in the red with healthcare SPXHC and financial SPSY suffering the largest percentage losses Broadcom Inc O AVGO rose 1 3 after entering an agreement with Apple Inc O AAPL for the supply of wireless components used in its products Rivals Skyworks Solutions O SWKS and Qorvo Inc O QRVO were down 4 6 and 4 5 respectively on the news Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2 33 to 1 ratio on Nasdaq a 2 94 to 1 ratio favored decliners The S P 500 posted 85 new 52 week highs and 5 new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 115 new highs and 62 new lows
Volume on U S exchanges was 7 96 billion shares compared with the 7 13 billion average over the last 20 trading days | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 58 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Friday as losses in the Healthcare Consumer Services and Oil Gas sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0 58 while the S P 500 index declined 0 90 and the NASDAQ Composite index lost 0 93
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC which rose 8 13 or 5 15 points to trade at 68 47 at the close Meanwhile American Express Company NYSE AXP added 2 85 or 3 74 points to end at 135 11 and Boeing Co NYSE BA was up 1 66 or 5 26 points to 323 05 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Dow Inc NYSE DOW which fell 3 50 or 1 76 points to trade at 48 49 at the close Merck Company Inc NYSE MRK declined 2 91 or 2 58 points to end at 85 98 and JPMorgan Chase Co NYSE JPM was down 2 48 or 3 39 points to 133 15
The top performers on the S P 500 were Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC which rose 8 13 to 68 47 Arista Networks NYSE ANET which was up 3 47 to settle at 238 05 and DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc NYSE DVA which gained 3 34 to close at 83 19
The worst performers were Discover Financial Services NYSE DFS which was down 11 14 to 76 29 in late trade Synchrony Financial NYSE SYF which lost 9 86 to settle at 32 63 and Advance Auto Parts Inc NYSE AAP which was down 5 38 to 141 68 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Allied Healthcare Products Inc NASDAQ AHPI which rose 93 33 to 2 900 Lianluo Smart Ltd NASDAQ LLIT which was up 55 40 to settle at 1 0800 and Miragen Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ MGEN which gained 42 67 to close at 0 9700
The worst performers were Toughbuilt Industries Inc NASDAQ TBLT which was down 43 21 to 0 1580 in late trade CHF Solutions Inc NASDAQ CHFS which lost 40 75 to settle at 0 480 and Trans World Entertainment Corp NASDAQ TWMC which was down 24 50 to 5 270 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2010 to 783 and 96 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1998 fell and 660 advanced while 65 ended unchanged
Shares in Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC rose to 5 year highs gaining 8 13 or 5 15 to 68 47 Shares in DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc NYSE DVA rose to 3 years highs gaining 3 34 or 2 69 to 83 19 Shares in Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC rose to 5 year highs gaining 8 13 or 5 15 to 68 47 Shares in American Express Company NYSE AXP rose to all time highs gaining 2 85 or 3 74 to 135 11 Shares in Allied Healthcare Products Inc NASDAQ AHPI rose to 52 week highs up 93 33 or 1 400 to 2 900 Shares in Toughbuilt Industries Inc NASDAQ TBLT fell to all time lows falling 43 21 or 0 1202 to 0 1580 Shares in CHF Solutions Inc NASDAQ CHFS fell to all time lows losing 40 75 or 0 330 to 0 480
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 12 17 to 14 56
Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0 36 or 5 70 to 1571 10 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in March fell 2 50 or 1 39 to hit 54 20 a barrel while the March Brent oil contract fell 2 29 or 1 42 to trade at 60 62 a barrel
EUR USD was down 0 24 to 1 1025 while USD JPY fell 0 19 to 109 28
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 21 at 97 688 | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft raised as bull sees Q4 strength | Raymond James maintains a Strong Buy rating on Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and raises the target from 163 to 192
Analyst Micheal Turits cites checks suggesting that Microsoft had a strong quarter driven by software upgrades and Azure
Turits Our Microsoft checks were strong this quarter with the biggest improvement from resellers that were seeing an uptick in Office 365 E3 to E5 conversions on increased interest in collaboration and integration of Microsoft Teams and from security including EMS Azure Active Directory and Azure Sentinel
Microsoft will report Q4 results on January 29
MSFT shares are down 0 4 to 165 82 The company has a Very Bullish average Sell Side rating | 1/22/2020 |
MSFT | Greta Merkel big oil and a tax truce Davos Thursday highlights | Reuters Here are the highlights from Day 3 of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum WEF in the Swiss ski resort of Davos
GET A DEGREE GRETA
U S Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Greta Thunberg she should study economics a jibe which prompted the climate activist to say she didn t need a degree to know the world was not meeting its climate targets
BIG OIL S DILEMMA
Oil majors are at the sharp end of the climate debate facing a balancing act to secure their futures
GREEN SHOOTS
There are signs U S President Donald Trump is starting to engage more seriously on climate change and listening to the concerns of corporations the European Commission s vice president and head of its Green Deal said
MERKEL ON 5G
Diversification is crucial to ensuring a country s security in the rollout of 5G mobile technology and shunning one supplier altogether risks being counterproductive German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Merkel s government has been wrangling for weeks over how strict security requirements for Germany s 5G rollout should be and whether they should effectively shut out Chinese technology giant Huawei
TALIBAN HELP
Afghanistan s President Ashraf Ghani said that Pakistan continued to give sanctuary to an insurgent group that helps the Taliban in its war against Kabul and the U S contradicting a statement by Pakistan s prime minister
TAX TRUCE
France and the United States agreed how to press ahead with a global rewrite of cross border tax rules for the digital era French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said
OVERHEARD AT DAVOS
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres The planet will not be destroyed In the next few centuries and millennia we ll see the planet around the sun What will be destroyed is our capacity to live on the planet We will be destroyed by climate change not the planet
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT CEO Satya Nadella when asked about China s decision to ban foreign PCs and software from government offices within three years said If we consciously decouple the world whether it s the internet or trading spheres what have you all we would do is increase the overall transnational cost of our economy and everybody will be worse off | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Japan U S lead survey s corporate climate change action A List | FRANKFURT Reuters BT Danone PA DANO Microsoft O MSFT and Sony T 6758 are among 178 companies with top marks in the latest global ranking of transparency and action on climate change
Japan and the U S were the countries with the headquarters of the most A List companies individually while regionally Europe as a bloc was home to the highest number
Companies are coming under pressure from customers and investors to step up efforts to help slow climate change in accordance with the 2015 Paris climate agreement to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by shifting away from fossil fuels
Non profit CDP formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project ranked 2 of more than 8 000 companies that submitted environmental data in the A List of its index
The A List is released to coincide with this week s World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos which brings together leading figures from business government and civil society
Among examples of positive steps CDP said Japanese electronics giant Sony was making gaming consoles more energy efficient and Danish toy maker LEGO aims to use sustainable materials for packaging by 2025 and all products by 2030
CDP said the STOXX Global Climate Change Leaders index based on the CDP A List outperformed the STOXX global 1800 of major firms by 5 5 a year over a 7 year period
Leading on climate action is good business in today s economy Steven Tebbe managing director of CDP Europe said in a statement accompanying the report
Leading global names on the list included AstraZeneca L AZN L Oreal PA OREP Sainsburys L SBRY Nestle S NESN LEGO Walmart N WMT and Bayer DE BAYGn
Microsoft this week set a new ambition by pledging to remove as much carbon as it has emitted in 45 years and investment manager BlackRock N BLK said it would tie its engagements to sustainability | 1/20/2020 |
MSFT | Aramco International Listing Still on the Cards Minister Says | Bloomberg Saudi Aramco SE 2222 is still considering listing shares abroad the kingdom s Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said
It s still on the cards we made that very clear Al Jadaan told Bloomberg TV in an interview in Davos We will consider it but I don t think it s going to be anytime soon
Aramco raised 29 4 billion in the world s biggest ever initial public offering selling shares at 32 riyals each and overtaking Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL as the most valuable listed company
The oil giant s IPO ended up being very different from what Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had envisaged when he first floated the idea in 2016 with an ambition to raise as much as 100 billion
Aramco offered less than 2 and opted for a local listing after global investors balked at its hopes of valuing the company at 2 trillion Instead Aramco relied heavily on local investors and funds from neighboring Gulf Arab monarchies
The shares retreated 0 3 to 34 45 riyals in Riyadh on Wednesday | 1/22/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Drifts While Intel Surges on Strong Earnings | By Geoffrey Smith
Investing com Wall Street drifted sideways at the start of the final session of the week despite a business survey showing the U S economy continuing to perform above expectations on aggregate
The U S composite purchasing managers index published by consulting firm IHS Markit rose to 53 1 in January ahead of forecasts for a dip to 52 5 thanks to robust activity in the services sector The manufacturing PMI did however dip to 51 7 from 52 4 suggesting only moderate growth
By 1030 AM ET 1630 GMT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 21 points or 0 1 while the S P 500 was down 0 2 and the Nasdaq Composite was flat coming off an earlier record high
Chipmaker Intel NASDAQ INTC was the standout performer rising 7 2 to its highest since the very peak of the dot com boom back in 2000 after reporting better than expected earnings after the bell on Thursday The company continues to ride the wave of demand for high powered chips from data centers on which Cloud servers run It also enjoyed a kicker from demand for new PCs ahead of Microsoft s deadline for ending support for Windows 7
Rival Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO also extended gains rising another 2 5 in the wake of its announcement of a major deal to supply Apple NASDAQ AAPL Skyworks NASDAQ SWKS whose products will be displaced by the deal fell 4 2
NextEra Energy NYSE NEE the parent company of Florida Power Light meanwhile overcame an initial dip premarket to rise 0 7 as it reiterated its ultra bullish guidance for the next three years
American Express NYSE AXP rose 2 9 after reporting a strong holiday quarter with U S spending on its cards up by 6 year on year
Elsewhere the dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of other currencies hit a new high for the year of 97 710 before retreating to 97 665 up 0 2 on the day U S crude oil prices continued to fall on fears of oversupply as fears strengthened that the coronavirus outbreak will hit Chinese demand They were down 2 2 at 54 40 a barrel their lowest since October | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | Intel Stock Rises 6 | Investing com Intel NASDAQ INTC Stock rose by 5 50 to trade at 66 80 by 09 30 14 30 GMT on Friday on the NASDAQ exchange
The volume of Intel shares traded since the start of the session was 4 01M Intel has traded in a range of 66 49 to 66 95 on the day
The stock has traded at 66 9500 at its highest and 58 7500 at its lowest during the past seven days | 1/25/2020 |
MSFT | Which company just hit 1 trillion Google it | By David Randall NEW YORK Reuters As Google parent Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc became on Thursday the fourth U S company to top a market value of more than 1 trillion some funds holding its shares are wondering whether now is the time to cash in on the stock s extraordinary gains Shares of the Internet search giant are up nearly 17 over the last three months outpacing a broader rally in the S P 500 index over the same period by 6 percentage points Short interest in the stock a measure of how many investors are betting on a price decline is at 1 near a 52 week high for the company and higher than competitors such as Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Facebook NASDAQ FB according to Refinitv data Alphabet joins Apple NASDAQ AAPL Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft as the only U S companies to hit 1 trillion in market value Google is a stock that won t get you fired said Kevin Landis a portfolio manager at Firsthand Funds who hasn t added to his current Alphabet position since the first quarter of 2019 Will I be able to double my money in this stock from here I m not sure about that Alphabet s shares are among a small group of stocks found in the top holdings of both mutual funds and hedge funds two types of institutions whose investing styles tend to be markedly different a Goldman Sachs NYSE GS analysis showed That could leave it exposed to volatile price swings if sentiment suddenly changes Despite those concerns many investors are finding it hard to say goodbye The 28 climb in Alphabet and the performance of other technology and tech related stocks helped money managers post big gains in 2019 making it difficult for many to justify cutting their exposure even as they fret over the implications of its run up Ernesto Ramos portfolio manager of the BMO Large Cap Growth Fund has held onto his shares betting that Alphabet s exposure to online advertising will eventually justify its above average valuation Alphabet trades at 26 6 times future earnings compared with 18 5 for the S P 500 Scott Goginsky a portfolio manager of the Biondo Focus fund has held off adding to a longstanding position over the last year concerned that the company s costs are likely to increase due to its efforts to pre empt any additional regulatory measures from Washington That could cut into the margins of businesses like YouTube if it needs to hire additional workers to vet user posted content he said Alphabet is scheduled to report fourth quarter earnings on Feb 3 In its latest report the company missed analysts estimates for third quarter profit by about 1 7 billion though it beat revenue expectations That news did little to dent investors bullishness on the company Alphabet s stock retreated briefly on the report only to resume its climb several days later
Bearish investors however can point to Amazon com which saw its market value fall below 1 trillion after its streak of record profits ended in July Shares of the company are down nearly 7 over the last six months compared with a 10 gain in the S P 500 overall | 1/17/2020 |
MSFT | Wall Street s trillion dollar club dwarfs Europe Inc | By Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan LONDON Reuters With Google parent Alphabet O GOOGL becoming the latest entrant to Wall Street s trillion dollar club Europe s blue chip companies are dwarfed by comparison the most valuable firm from the old continent Nestle is worth just a third of that Alphabet surged past the 1 trillion mark late on Thursday joining Apple O AAPL Microsoft O MSFT and Amazon O AMZN which had breached that level in 2018 before giving up some of those gains Add Facebook O FB current worth 630 billion and you get a group with a combined market cap of 5 2 trillion more than the combined 4 6 trillion value of the STOXX 50 European index STOXX50 Graphic Top five U S companies bigger than European blue chip index click Comparing entire benchmark stoc indexes the U S S P 500 SPX has a 27 5 trillion price tag almost three times the 10 1 trillion on the pan European STOXX 600 STOXX There is no place for Europe at the global top 10 table where the cheapest company JPMorgan NYSE JPM scrapes in at 430 billion well above Nestle s 315 billion Graphic The World s top ten companies click The main culprit for the huge discrepancy is Europe s lack of a digital bellwether stock to match the past decade s tech boom spearheaded by the U S FAANGs Facebook Amazon Apple Netflix NASDAQ NFLX Google and China s BATs Baidu NASDAQ BIDU Alibaba NYSE BABA and Tencent The FAANGs have transformed the U S equity landscape with the Top 5 U S stocks accounting for almost a fifth of the market cap of the whole S P500 Here s a trip down memory lane when oil majors and banks reigned supreme on Wall Street
Graphic S P 500 in 2007s A good mix click | 1/17/2020 |
MSFT | Slack drops on Microsoft Teams ad push | Microsoft MSFT 0 1 will kick off a new Teams ad campaign this weekend according to CNBC
The global ad campaign will launch in the U S on Sunday during the NFL playoffs then roll out next month in UK France and Germany
In November Teams revealed it had more than 20M DAUs above the 12M DAUs that Slack NYSE WORK reported the previous month Note that Slack and some analysts have questioned what Microsoft counts as an active user
Slack shares are down 2 1 to 22 49 | 1/17/2020 |
MSFT | With market at record highs eyes on reports from chipmakers | By Caroline Valetkevitch and Noel Randewich
NEW YORK Reuters Reports from Netflix Intel and Texas Instruments next week may hint at what is to come in the December quarterly earnings season with some investors wary of possible danger signs that could knock Wall Street after its latest surge to record highs
The S P 500 has gotten off to a strong start in January up 3 so far this year fueled by a truce in the U S China trade war low interest rates and signs the economy remains healthy
Analysts on average expect reports to show S P 500 earnings per share fell 0 8 in the fourth quarter with technology earnings seen up 0 6 according to IBES data from Refinitiv
Investors are looking beyond fourth quarter results at what companies may say about outlooks and plans for investment in light of the recently signed Phase 1 trade deal between Washington and Beijing
Earnings estimates for the fourth quarter have already weakened slightly in the latest week as initial reports from big banks and a smattering of other companies filtered in
Most of the rally we had in 2019 was in anticipation of better earnings in 2020 said Willie Delwiche an investment strategist at Baird in Milwaukee Rather than getting caught up in what the Q4 numbers are the attention will be on what if any revisions you get to Q1 and Q2 numbers
Analyst estimates for quarterly earnings tend to decline as any given quarter approaches and any hint that estimates for 2020 are bucking that trend would be positive Delwiche said
The S P information technology index SPLRCT which includes such market heavyweights as Apple O AAPL Intel O INTC and Microsoft O MSFT has led Wall Street so far in 2020 with a nearly 6 gain It is up 50 over the past year the strongest performer over that period The index is now trading at 22 times expected earnings its highest multiple since around early 2005 according to Refinitiv s Datastream
The S P 500 is trading at about 18 times expected earnings similar to levels it briefly hit two years ago
There s going to be heightened attention to guidance to increase comfort levels with valuations given the strength we ve seen in the last two months in the majority of tech names said Michael James managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles
Because of that you re more likely to see slight disappointments punished more severely than positive guidance is rewarded he added
Underscoring the importance of results from Intel on Thursday and Apple on Jan 28 the information technology sector is expected to have accounted for nearly 22 of total S P 500 operating earnings in the last quarter of 2019 according to S P Dow Jones Indices
For a lot of the tech names they seem to be well positioned for 2020 said Rick Meckler partner Cherry Lane Investments a family investment office in New Vernon New Jersey
Still in the market overall What has happened is the multiples expanded And that s really the risk of the market
Technology earnings growth for 2020 is estimated at 10 4 which is expected to contribute 2 0 percentage points to the S P 500 s expected growth rate of 9 7 according to Refinitiv s data which would make tech the largest contributor
Netflix s O NFLX quarterly report on Tuesday after the bell will show how well the video streaming giant is withstanding a wave of competition led by entertainment heavyweight Walt Disney Co N DIS
Netflix shares stumbled last year on worries over slowing subscriber growth and ballooning costs of high budget productions such as The Crown and The Irishman Its shares are down nearly 8 since April 2019 when Disney was unveiled Disney s stock has risen 24 since then
Netflix shares tend to be volatile after it reports results which could be the case again
Netflix options imply a 7 6 swing for the shares in either direction by next Friday Jan 24 Over the last eight quarters on average the shares moved 6 after the company reported results according to Trade Alert
Seen as the chip industry bellwether Texas Instruments N TXN report and potential comments from management on Wednesday after the bell will provide evidence of whether a global downturn in semiconductor is bottoming out
Expectations that the chip industry will soon pick up have fueled a 30 surge in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index SOX since mid 2019
Analysts on average expect Intel to report a 3 increase in fourth quarter revenue and to forecast a 7 increase in current quarter revenue according to Refinitiv | 1/17/2020 |
MSFT | Factbox Big Tech and their carbon pledges | Reuters Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT said on Thursday it would take out of the atmosphere as much carbon as the company had ever produced joining U S tech giants in setting ambitious goals for combating climate change Below is a snapshot of the promises and achievements U S West Coast tech companies have made in the area MICROSOFT CORP Microsoft said it would be carbon negative by 2030 and that by 2050 it hopes to have sequestrated enough carbon to account for all the direct emissions the company has ever made The Windows operating system maker said it would fund the program with an internal carbon fee and that its new climate innovation fund would invest 1 billion over the next four years into new technologies to reduce its carbon footprint Microsoft expects to generate 16 million metric tons of CO2 in 2020 including indirect emissions from activities like corporate travel The company said on Jan 16 it would release annual reports of its carbon emission starting this year and would also sign the United Nation s Business Ambition Pledge to limit global temperature rise to 1 5 C above pre industrial levels nL1N29L11N APPLE INC The iPhone maker last March said that it had reduced carbon emissions by 64 since 2011 preventing 2 8 million metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere It also said it had doubled the number of suppliers using only clean energy for production and was on track to add 4 gigawatts of renewable energy to the power used by its supply chain by 2020 However in October Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in a speech that the company was on track to add 6 gigawatts of renewable power with its suppliers by 2020 raising its previous goal In December Apple NASDAQ AAPL bought the first ever commercial batch of carbon free aluminum from a joint venture between aluminum suppliers Alcoa NYSE AA Corp and Rio Tinto LON RIO to be used in Apple products Apple s global facilities including retail stores offices and data centers across 43 countries use 100 renewable energy it had said in 2018 AMAZON COM INC Amazon NASDAQ AMZN Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has pledged to make the e commerce giant net carbon neutral by 2040 and has said it will buy 100 000 electric delivery vans from U S start up Rivian Cutting emissions is a challenging goal for Amazon which delivers about 10 billion items a year and has a massive transportation and data center footprint In September Bezos said that Amazon would use 100 clean energy by 2030 up from 40 ALPHABET INC Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google has vowed to neutralize carbon emissions from delivering consumer hardware by 2020 and include recycled plastic in each of its products by 2022 The search giant said in August its transport related carbon emissions per unit fell 40 in 2018 compared to 2017 by relying more on ships instead of planes to move hardware from factories In September the company said it reduced its greenhouse gas emission by 3 7 million tons to 750 000 tons of CO2 in 2018 The company says it has cut carbon emission by 52 since 2011 Google bought enough renewable energy to match 100 of its global annual electricity use in 2017 and 2018 it said last year FACEBOOK INC Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB said last year it was committed to reducing its greenhouse gas footprint by 75 from 2017 levels next year and to using 100 renewable energy in 2020
A report by the social network shows that it has reduced green house gas emissions by 23 to 339 000 metric tons in the four years since 2014 | 1/16/2020 |
MSFT | Stocks Wall Street Clinches Fresh Record Google Joins 1 Trillion Club | By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing com The S P closed at a record high Thursday as signs the consumer remains on solid footing and bullish earnings from Morgan Stanley NYSE MS prompted a wave of buying across stocks
The S P 500 rose 0 84 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 1 06 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 0 92 All three major averages ended the day in record terriroty
Morgan Stanley NYSE MS rallied 6 6 as the Wall Street bank raised its profit outlook following results that beat on both the top and bottom lines The earnings beat following a similar showing from rivals like JPMorgan NYSE JPM and Citigroup NYSE C earlier this week
The day of green was also supported by easing worries over the health of U S consumer which has been one of the main catalysts underpinning economic growth following in line retail sales
A weaker than expected sales report from Target NYSE TGT a day earlier had raised doubts on the strength of the U S consumer over the crucial holiday period
Still some on Wall Street said the weaker report from Target may signal headwinds for Walmart NYSE WMT which reports earnings next month
We don t think WMT was immune to the headwinds TGT faced in the weaker product categories it called out and it may also have been affected by the shorter holiday period Morgan Stanley said
Tech meanwhile remained red hot thanks to gains in tech heavyweights like Facebook NASDAQ FB Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL
Alphabet s advance into the close took its marketcap above 1 trillion for the first time joining other tech stalwarts who have achieved the milestone such as Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Apple NASDAQ AAPL | 1/16/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft to erase its carbon footprint past and future in climate push | By Stephen Nellis and Jeffrey Dastin Reuters Microsoft Corp O MSFT on Thursday set a new ambition among Fortune 500 companies in addressing climate change pledging to remove as much carbon as it has emitted in its 45 year history The focus on clearing carbon from the atmosphere sets Microsoft s climate goals apart from other corporate pledges which have focused on cutting ongoing emissions or preventing future ones If the last decade has taught us anything it s that technology built without these principles can do more harm than good Chief Executive Satya Nadella said at a media event at Microsoft s headquarters in Redmond Washington We must begin to offset the damaging effects of climate change he said adding if global temperatures continue to rise unabated the results will be devastating The plan includes the creation of a Climate Innovation Fund which will invest 1 billion over the next four years to speed up the development of carbon removal technology The announcement by the world s largest software company reflects the rising profile of U S corporate action after President Donald Trump announced in 2017 his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement the global pact to fight climate change HISTORICAL EMISSIONS A NEW GOAL Microsoft s pledge to address its historical emissions may resonate with some developing nations which say countries that created the most carbon and wealth in the process are not taking responsibility for their past pollution U S Senators Chris Coons a Democrat from Delaware and Mike Braun an Indiana Republican applauded Microsoft The scope and scale of this proposal is exactly the kind of bold action we need from the business community the pair chairs of the bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus said in a statement Microsoft plans to cut carbon emissions by more than half by 2030 across its supply chain an effort requiring technology that does not fully exist company President Brad Smith said He said Microsoft would widen the reach of a fee it has charged its business divisions to account for their carbon emissions Microsoft said it charges 15 per metric ton for core carbon emissions internally and will expand the coverage in phases to cover all emissions Microsoft s price is lower than that for carbon traded in California where it was 17 per ton in the most recent auction and the European Union where it was estimated to trade at 26 57 euros or 29 58 in the current quarter CARBON CAPTURE RAISES QUESTIONS Co founder Bill Gates was an early backer of British Columbia based Carbon Engineering among a handful of developers of direct air capture technology Carbon Engineering CEO Steve Oldham said the firm s first direct air capture plant is under construction and is expected to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year Microsoft is at the helm of what could be a new movement towards negative emissions Elizabeth V Sturcken of the Environmental Defense Fund said in a statement adding that the nonprofit advocacy group was eager for Microsoft to use its political influence as well Microsoft s goal of removing enough carbon by 2050 to account for all its emissions since its founding in 1975 includes direct emissions from sources such as company vehicles and indirect emissions from electricity use Question remain about the technology that Microsoft is considering Sue Reid vice president of climate and energy at U S nonprofit Ceres which works with companies on sustainability commitments said the economics of direct air capture have yet to be worked out and reforestation rates may not be fast enough to catch up with growing emissions That math is all facing some new uncertainty and vulnerabilities tied to exacerbated climate change impact like there being more wildfires she said INVESTORS WANT ACTION ON CLIMATE Microsoft s announcement comes as big investors pay more attention to how companies tackle climate change Earlier this week BlackRock NYSE BLK CEO Larry Fink said companies must act or face investors anger over how unsustainable business practices might curb their future wealth But even as technology companies have stepped in with climate goal plans they have faced employee criticism for doing too little Amazon com Inc O AMZN the world s largest online retailer last year pledged to be net zero carbon by 2040 and to buy 100 000 electric delivery vans from a startup after employee activists pushed the retailer to toughen its stance on climate change Microsoft plans to become net zero carbon a decade earlier than Amazon although its emissions are roughly a third of Amazon s Microsoft expects to release 16 million metric tons of carbon in 2020 including indirect emissions from activities like corporate travel Amazon whose cloud business is bigger than Microsoft s delivers billions of packages as the largest internet retailer and owns grocer Whole Foods It emitted more than 44 million metric tons of carbon in 2018 including indirect sources It was not immediately clear if the figures reported by the companies were exactly comparable EMPLOYEE ACTIVISTS HIGHLIGHT OIL CONTRACTS Microsoft and Amazon have come under fire from activist tech workers who have demanded that they stop supplying technology to oil and gas companies because of the polluting nature of fossil fuel extraction Microsoft in 2017 announced a multi year deal to sell cloud services to U S energy giant Chevron Corp N CVX Microsoft Workers 4 Good which says it represents Microsoft employees aiming to hold the company to its stated values lauded the climate plan but said this goal is incompatible with contracts that aim to increase oil extraction a process which we know is not sustainable In a blog post Microsoft on Thursday reiterated its commitment to working with oil and gas providers saying it is imperative that we enable energy companies to transition to renewable energy and carbon capture technologies Bill Weihl former director of sustainability at Facebook Inc O FB said Microsoft does not take into account that its work with oil companies could outweigh the gains of measures Microsoft takes on its own carbon reduction There is good stuff here Weihl said But the topline message that this is urgent is not matched by what they re focusing on | 1/16/2020 |
MSFT | Alphabet public market capitalization tops 1 trillion | NEW YORK Reuters The public market capitalization of Google parent Alphabet O GOOGL topped the 1 trillion mark shortly before the close of trading on Thursday making it the fourth S P 500 component to top the lofty level
The company joined Microsoft O MSFT Amazon com O AMZN and Apple O AAPL in crossing the threshold as its shares closed up 0 76 at 1 450 16 on the session | 1/16/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Intel Broadcom Rise in Premarket NextEra Slips | By Geoffrey Smith
Investing com Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Friday 24th January Please refresh for updates
9 18 AM ET Alibaba ADRs NYSE BABA fell 0 3 on concerns for Chinese consumption this year amid a clampdown on travel and public celebrations and the widespread closure of movie theaters and other places of mass gatherings due to the spreading coronavirus outbreak Standard Poor s Ratings Group warned on Thursday that the outbreak could take up to 1 2 percentage points off GDP growth this year
9 13 AM ET Ericsson BS ERICAs NASDAQ ERIC ADRs fell 7 6 after the telecom equipment company flagged higher costs related to the rollout of 5G networks along with a disappointing 4 annual drop in revenue in the U S which it blamed in part on the delays to the merger of Sprint NYSE S and T Mobile US NASDAQ TMUS which has been held up by antitrust concerns The company nonetheless returned to profit in the quarter
9 09 AM ET Air Products and Chemicals NYSE APD stock fell 0 1 after saying earnings in the current quarter would be some 4 below current consensus estimates That overshadowed a modest beat on earnings for the final quarter of 2019
9 AM ET Intel NASDAQ INTC stock rose 4 9 coming off earlier highs after the company reported better than expected earnings and sales for the last three months of 2019 Demand from data centers that power Cloud servers along with a surge in PC upgrades ahead of Microsoft s deadline for ending Windows 7 support were the main factors
Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO stock rose 3 3 extending gains it made late on Thursday after announcing deals with Apple NASDAQ AAPL for components worth up to 15 billion Skyworks Solutions NASDAQ SWKS some of whose products may be displaced by the agreements pared losses to be flat
American Express NYSE AXP stock rose 2 5 after the company reported better than expected earnings and revenue Spending by customers using AmEx cards during the final quarter of 2019 rose 6 in the U S and 4 abroad Net income fell though with earnings per share falling some 14 from a year earlier
Nextera Energy NYSE NEE stock fell 1 2 in a rare blip for the parent of Florida Power Light that is now one of U S s biggest producers of renewable energy Chairman and CEO Jim Robo nonetheless said he d be disappointed if we are not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of its profit guidance through 2022 given its strong pipeline of projects | 1/25/2020 |
INTC | Top 5 Things to Know in the Market on Friday 24th January | By Geoffrey Smith
Investing com The coronavirus death toll rose to 25 while travel bans and other measures taken by the authorities are posing an increased risk to China s growth outlook for the year warned S P The slump in oil prices caused by the virus has led to increasing talk of OPEC and Russia reviewing their output cut deal to shore the market up Business surveys in Japan and Europe turned up modestly in January with the U K a particular bright spot Stocks are set to open higher after a mixed bag of earnings on Thursday ended on a bright note from chipmaker Intel NASDAQ INTC Here s what you need to know in financial markets on Friday 24th January
1 A clear and present risk to Chinese growth but not a global emergency
The official death toll from the coronavirus rose to 25 although the World Health Organization continued to designate the outbreak as a matter of local rather than global concern Most of the victims so far have been elderly according to various The youngest confirmed victim was 36 years old
A total of 10 Chinese cities have now put restrictions on travel although with the disease now being confirmed in 32 of 34 Chinese provinces the virus has already spread thoroughly throughout the country
A much larger number of cities have curbed public ceremonies to celebrate the lunar new year and closed centers such as movie theaters creating a clear risk to demand and growth in a week that is China s most important holiday Standard Poor s Ratings Group estimates that a major epidemic could take as much as 1 2 percentage points off growth this year
2 PMIs show improvement in Germany U K but drags elsewhere
The euro zone can t catch a break Just as its biggest economy Germany showed signs of pulling out of the funk it s been in for the last 18 months strikes in France and apparently slowdowns in Italy and Spain mean that the region only showed muted growth at the start of the year
That s the takeaway from the flash purchasing managers indices posted by IHS Markit which showed the composite eurozone index stuck at 50 9 in January German manufacturing traditionally the continent s most reliable growth engine posted the smallest contraction since June last year with an index reading of 45 2
By contrast the debate over an interest rate cut from the Bank of England got even muddier after the composite PMI rebounded to 52 4 its highest level since May albeit at 49 8 manufacturing was still below the 50 mark that would signify growth
Both GBP USD and EUR USD fell slightly on the back of the releases pushing the dollar index to a seven week high
3 Stocks set to open higher as virus fears recede
U S stock markets are set to advance again at the opening Friday after shaking off a mixed bag of results on Thursday that ended on a bright note from Intel NASDAQ INTC see below
By 6 20 AM ET 1120 GMT Dow futures were up 66 points or 0 2 while S P 500 Futures were up 0 2 and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0 3
European markets overnight turned sharply higher with the benchmark Stoxx 600 rising 1 2 and the U K FTSE 100 rising 1 6 as fears about the scale of the coronavirus eased while the PMIs in the U K and Germany bolstered sentiment Chinese markets are now shut for the week long national holiday
4 Intel s figures bolstered by data center growth
Intel stock rose 6 in after hours trading after the company reported better than expected sales and earnings for the three months through December thanks mainly to the continued increase in demand for chips from data centers that power Cloud based servers
Another boost came from a 2 rise in sales at the PC division due largely to an surge in demand for newer PCs as Microsoft s decision to end support for Windows 7 led to an increase in upgrades to newer models
The results added to strong reports from Taiwan Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics this week CEO Bob Swan said the company was performing above its medium term targets but warned that supply was tight which some interpreted as an admission that the company was vulnerable to losing further ground to competitors
5 Talk of more crude output cuts grows
Crude oil continued to struggle amid fears that the coronavirus will hit Chinese demand U S crude futures fell 0 6 to 55 27 a barrel while Brent futures fell 0 6 to 61 64
The slump in prices in the last couple of days has prompted some active jawboning from major producers with officials from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere talking up the possibility of extending and deepening production cuts that have been agreed through March
The Russian news agency Tass reported unidentified sources earlier that an extension of the current deal through the end of 2020 was under discussion while a review of countries individual quotas may take place in June
After the close Baker Hughes will update the market with its latest numbers on active drilling rigs The company gave a bleak outlook for its U S land based business earlier this week as it presented its quarterly number | 1/24/2020 |
INTC | Stocks U S Futures Move Higher Europe Posts Strong Gains | By Peter Nurse
Investing com U S stock markets are set to open higher Friday helped by a strong tone in Europe amid signs of improving business confidence and a lessening of concerns over the impact of the pneumonia like virus in China
At 6 55 AM ET 1155 GMT futures for the S P 500 Futures traded 7 points or 0 2 higher futures for the Nasdaq 31 points or 0 3 higher while the Dow Jones 30 Futures contract rose 73 points or 0 3
Late Thursday the World Health Organization decided against calling the virus a global health emergency despite the death toll in China rising to 25
Make no mistake this is an emergency in China but it has not yet become a global health emergency Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus the WHO s director general said at a briefing in Geneva Thursday
Markets in mainland China and South Korea are shut while Hong Kong closed early down just 8 points for lunar new year holidays
Stock market gains were strong in Europe Friday helped by improved sentiment in large parts of the continent s business community
The early readings of the PMI data showed Britain s vast services sector returned to growth in January for the first time since August while a downturn in manufacturing eased Businesses were more confident than expected in Germany continuing the recent signs of a pick up in economic activity The French release by contrast was hit by the strikes against President Emmanuel Macron s pension reform plans
At 06 55 AM ET 1155 GMT the German DAX was 1 4 higher the U K s FTSE 100 gained 1 6 France s CAC 40 gained 1 1 and the pan eurozone index the Euro Stoxx 50 up 1 3
Eyes will now turn to the release of the equivalent U S PMI data at 0945 AM ET 1445 GMT The manufacturing PMI was revised slightly lower to 52 4 from 52 5 in December of 2019 This release averaged 53 63 points from 2012 until 2019 reaching an all time high of 57 90 points in August of 2014
In corporate news Intel NASDAQ INTC will be in focus after the tech giant published strong fourth quarter results with sales up eight per cent to 20 21bn compared with the 19 23 billion expected Shares stood 5 6 higher premarket
Shares in Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO climbed 2 4 premarket after it disclosed late Thursday new deals with Apple NASDAQ AAPL worth 15 billion to supply the iPhone manufacturer with components
By contrast Skyworks NASDAQ SWKS Solutions dropped 2 9 in premarket despite beating expectations with its latest quarterly report and upbeat guidance The company competes with Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO to supply Apple NASDAQ AAPL
Elsewhere oil prices continued to show weakness amid fears that the emergence of the deadly virus in China could reduce demand for crude from the world s largest importer
AT 01 55 AM ET 0655 GMT U S crude futures traded 0 4 at 58 38 lower and the international benchmark Brent contract fell 0 5 to 61 73 Gold futures for February delivery on New York s COMEX dropped 0 4 to 1 558 65 | 1/24/2020 |
MSFT | What to watch as fourth quarter earnings kick into high gear | By Lewis Krauskopf NEW YORK Reuters U S corporate reporting season is expected to show lackluster profit growth and it has already gotten off to a bumpy start with big banks kicking off the fourth quarter to mixed investor reaction so far on the stock market With the vast majority of the S P 500 still yet to report forecasters expect fourth quarter earnings to be down 0 5 from a year ago according to IBES data from Refinitiv Q4 is probably the last quarter where the market kind of gives a pass to earnings said Dave Lafferty chief market strategist at Natixis Investment Managers in Boston Among the large banks JPMorgan Chase Co NYSE JPM and Citigroup NYSE C reported results that beat expectations while Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE GS and Wells Fargo NYSE WFC Co missed Within the S P 500 estimates vary widely for sector performance in the fourth quarter Financials and utilities companies overall are expected to have tallied double digit profit growth while energy industrials and consumer discretionary are seen reporting declines GRAPHIC Q4 earnings expectations by sector Many investors say they are more focused on corporate outlooks with stronger 2020 profit growth needed to help justify big gains in the stock market As of Wednesday consensus analyst estimates called for a nearly 10 rise in earnings this year according to Refinitiv There is a lot more optimism priced into the 2020 numbers than there has been priced into the 2019 numbers Lafferty said GRAPHIC 2020 earnings estimates by sector With 2019 being a relatively sluggish year for profits the stock market s ascent reflected a rising valuation on equities The S P 500 s forward price to earnings ratio has climbed from roughly 14 times to start 2019 to about 18 times by the end an increase that investors attributed largely to interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve Investors say such extensive P E expansion is unlikely again this year putting pressure on corporate earnings to come through We expect earnings growth to drive stock market gains in 2020 LPL Financial Chief Investment Strategist John Lynch said in written commentary on Wednesday With valuations elevated corporate America will probably have to do the heavy lifting to get stocks much above current levels GRAPHIC US stock market valuation Particular focus will be on results from market heavyweights Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc and Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN which alone represent about 15 weighting in the benchmark S P 500 Those stocks particularly Apple and Microsoft contributed a significant chunk of the S P 500 s 31 5 total return last year according to Goldman Sachs data
GRAPHIC The shadow of market heavyweights | 1/16/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft launching 1B climate fund | Microsoft MSFT 1 1 will launch a 1B Climate Innovation Fund to encourage the development of new carbon reduction and removal technologies
MSFT says the fund will leverage its balance sheet to make loans and take equity stakes in relevant ventures
The tech giant also pledges to be carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 will remove enough carbon to make up for the emissions and electrical consumption since Microsoft s founding | 1/16/2020 |
INTC | U S stocks mixed at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 09 | Investing com U S stocks were mixed after the close on Thursday as gains in the Utilities Industrials and Technology sectors led shares higher while losses in the Healthcare Telecoms and Oil Gas sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0 09 while the S P 500 index climbed 0 11 and the NASDAQ Composite index climbed 0 20
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Boeing Co NYSE BA which rose 2 84 or 8 79 points to trade at 317 79 at the close Meanwhile Pfizer Inc NYSE PFE added 1 29 or 0 52 points to end at 40 71 and Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC was up 0 94 or 0 59 points to 63 32 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were The Travelers Companies Inc NYSE TRV which fell 5 06 or 7 15 points to trade at 134 19 at the close Nike Inc NYSE NKE declined 1 41 or 1 47 points to end at 103 02 and Walt Disney Company NYSE DIS was down 1 26 or 1 81 points to 142 20
The top performers on the S P 500 were Citrix Systems Inc NASDAQ CTXS which rose 7 76 to 128 48 Netflix Inc NASDAQ NFLX which was up 7 24 to settle at 349 60 and American Airlines Group NASDAQ AAL which gained 5 42 to close at 28 80
The worst performers were VF Corporation NYSE VFC which was down 9 69 to 85 41 in late trade Raymond James Financial Inc NYSE RJF which lost 6 17 to settle at 91 24 and The Travelers Companies Inc NYSE TRV which was down 5 06 to 134 19 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Trans World Entertainment Corp NASDAQ TWMC which rose 202 16 to 6 980 Co Diagnostics Inc NASDAQ CODX which was up 79 65 to settle at 2 030 and Innovate Biopharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ INNT which gained 38 53 to close at 0 9100
The worst performers were Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ TTPH which was down 30 73 to 2 660 in late trade Genprex Inc NASDAQ GNPX which lost 25 93 to settle at 1 4000 and SenesTech Inc NASDAQ SNES which was down 22 18 to 0 4490 at the close
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 1407 to 1362 and 125 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1455 fell and 1183 advanced while 76 ended unchanged
Shares in Citrix Systems Inc NASDAQ CTXS rose to all time highs gaining 7 76 or 9 25 to 128 48 Shares in Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC rose to 5 year highs up 0 94 or 0 59 to 63 32 Shares in SenesTech Inc NASDAQ SNES fell to 52 week lows losing 22 18 or 0 1280 to 0 4490
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 0 54 to 12 98
Gold Futures for February delivery was up 0 35 or 5 40 to 1562 10 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in March fell 1 83 or 1 04 to hit 55 70 a barrel while the March Brent oil contract fell 0 08 or 0 05 to trade at 62 04 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 02 to 1 1055 while USD JPY rose 0 01 to 109 50
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 16 at 97 450 | 1/23/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Edge Higher With Virus Fallout in Focus Markets Wrap | Bloomberg For a fresh perspective on the stories that matter in Australian business and politics sign up for our new weekly newsletter
U S stocks eked out a small advance dodging the losses that took hold in Europe and Asia as investors evaluated the risk that a deadly respiratory virus spreading from China could curb global growth Treasuries climbed and crude oil dropped
Gains for big tech companies overshadowed losses for makers of consumer goods providing just enough lift to send the Nasdaq Composite Index toward a record high Other markets showed greater concern about the potential fallout with oil sinking to its lowest level since November on speculation the virus could dent demand Government bonds and the yen rallied as investors sought a haven
Earlier China s Shanghai Composite Index plunged 2 8 on the last trading day before the Lunar New Year holiday the biggest drop in eight months as traders considered the virus s potential impact on travel and shopping
While corporate earnings have beaten analysts estimates this season amid signals that global growth is picking up investors are cautious with stocks trading at lofty valuations Fewer than 20 deaths have been tallied from the Chinese virus and the World Health Organization opted against calling the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern but traders are hesitant to take on risk on the chance the outbreak could develop into something like the much more devastating SARS respiratory illness that emerged in China 17 years ago
There is concern that this may become a much bigger event said Quincy Krosby chief market strategist for Prudential Financial Inc NYSE PRU The market is vulnerable to a pullback or a consolidation
Elsewhere emerging market stocks fell to a two week low Mining companies led the Stoxx Europe 600 Index lower The euro weakened after policy makers held interest rates steady and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said officials will look into the potential side effects of negative interest rates
Read more on the impact from the virus
Singapore Reports Virus Case as China Limits Some TravelDeadly Virus Turns Wuhan Into a No Go Zone for AirlinesChinese Stocks Plunge in Worst End to Lunar Year on RecordHere are some events to watch out for this week
Companies including Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and Procter Gamble Co will post results Eurozone PMI data is due Friday The World Economic Forum the annual gathering of global leaders in politics business and culture continues in Davos Switzerland These are the main moves in markets
Stocks
The S P 500 Index rose 0 1 as of 3 02 p m New York time the Nasdaq Composite added 0 2 The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0 7 The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dipped 0 8 Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0 1 The euro fell 0 3 to 1 1055 The British pound fell 0 2 to 1 3116 The Japanese yen gained 0 3 to 109 51 per dollar Bonds
The yield on 10 year Treasuries dipped four basis points to 1 73 Germany s 10 year yield fell five basis points to 0 31 Britain s 10 year yield decreased five basis points to 0 59 Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude decreased 2 2 to 55 52 a barrel Gold rose 0 3 to 1 562 98 an ounce | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft s President Says U S China Divisions Risk Tech Cold War | Bloomberg Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT gets just 1 8 of its global sales from China even though the country accounts for about 18 of the world s population Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said noting that tensions between the two largest economies risk creating a technology cold war
The Chinese market is not and has never been fully open to U S companies Smith said Wednesday at the U S China Series conference in Seattle That s not the only reason American companies have failed to deliver success in China he said U S firms also haven t recognized the differing tastes and needs of Chinese customers
An increase in restrictions on what can be seen online in China the so called Great Firewall of China also means that there isn t a single global internet and if there ever was it ended five to eight years ago Smith said Tensions with China are bipartisan and won t be changed by the next U S presidential election leading to questions as to whether the two countries are heading to a technology cold war he said
Smith related a recent conversation with a former senior administration official whom he didn t name The Microsoft executive said he asked about the likelihood of a tech cold war I think we re already in one Smith said the former official replied | 1/15/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft patching major security flaw | Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT is rolling out a security patch to fix a major Windows flaw that was discovered by the National Security Agency
The vulnerability patch is for Windows 10 and the 2016 and 2019 versions of Windows Server
Krebs on Security called the issue an extraordinarily serious security vulnerability in a core cryptographic component and said Microsoft first released a patch to the U S military and other key customers
Read Microsoft s details about the flaw here | 1/14/2020 |
MSFT | Disney App Reportedly Downloaded 41M Times Shares Climb | By Kim Khan
Investing com Walt Disney NYSE DIS joined the rally in the Dow Tuesday seeing strong volume on a bullish report about demand for its streaming service app
The Disney app was downloaded 40 9 million times from Apple s NASDAQ AAPL App Store and Google NASDAQ GOOGL Play CNET reported citing a report from mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower
Shares of Disney rose 1 9 in afternoon trading That added more than 18 points to the Dow s spike of more than 130 led by JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM after its solid earnings report Goldman Sachs NYSE GS and Boeing NYSE BA
Disney has generated about 97 2 million in user spending on mobile Sensor Tower added
And 84 of revenue and installs have been in the U S in the first 60 days
The numbers from sensor tower don t include those downloading and watching Disney from smart TVs devices like Roku NASDAQ ROKU and gaming consoles like Microsoft a NASDAQ MSFT Xbox | 1/14/2020 |
INTC | Day Ahead Top 3 Things to Watch for Jan 23 | By Kim Khan
Investing com Here are three things that could rock the markets tomorrow
1 P G and Intel NASDAQ INTC Weigh In
Earnings tomorrow are a dichotomy with the definitive legacy consumer products giant reporting before the bell and the definitive legacy tech company up after the close
Procter Gamble NYSE PG will weigh in ahead of trading
Analysts on average expect P G to earn 1 37 per share on sales of about 18 4 billion according to forecasts compiled by Investing com
But investors should be cautious going into earnings Investing com analyst Haris Anwar said
The pace of growth that P G is showing is unusual for a company which produces everyday consumables in categories where the competition is intense and margins are low Anwar said From a big consumer staple giant like P G it wouldn t be fair to expect a blowout quarter every time
After the bell Intel NASDAQ INTC will be up
Intel NASDAQ INTC is expected to report a profit of 1 25 per share with revenue coming in at 19 2 billion
Earlier this week Jefferies upgraded its rating on Intel to hold from underperform
2 ECB Press Conference Takes the Stage
It s fairly quiet on the U S economic calendar tomorrow But early hours will bring the European Central Bank s interest rate decision
The ECB is expected to keep rates at negative 0 5 a record low but of more interest will be the tone of ECB President Christine Lagarde where the sighting of a hawk could boost the euro
The decision is at 7 45 AM ET 12 45 GMT while the press conference with Lagarde is scheduled for 8 30 AM ET
Also at 8 30 AM ET the weekly initial jobless claims numbers arrive
The Labor Department is expected to report a bounce back to 215 000 of claims for first time unemployment benefits after last weeks surprisingly low 204 00
3 Supplies Are Running the Oil Market
Oil prices have been pressured by a huge build up in oil products in the U S in the last two weeks indicating that supply is continuing to get ahead of demand
Today the American Petroleum Institute reported that its measure of oil inventories rose by 1 6 million for the week ended Jan 17
The Energy Information Administration will report its weekly inventory numbers tomorrow at 11 00 AM ET 16 00 GMT slightly later than usual due to the Martin Luther King Day Holiday on Monday
Traders are looking for a decline of about 1 million barrels for oil inventories according to forecasts compiled by Investing com
They are also forecasting a rise of about 1 million barrels in gasoline inventories and a build of about 3 million barrels in distillate stockpiles | 1/22/2020 |
MSFT | U S stocks mixed at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0 11 | Investing com U S stocks were mixed after the close on Tuesday as gains in the Healthcare Consumer Goods and Utilities sectors led shares higher while losses in the Technology Financials and Industrials sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0 11 while the S P 500 index declined 0 15 and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 0 24
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Pfizer Inc NYSE PFE which rose 1 67 or 0 66 points to trade at 40 07 at the close Meanwhile JPMorgan Chase Co NYSE JPM added 1 17 or 1 60 points to end at 138 80 and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc NASDAQ WBA was up 1 04 or 0 56 points to 54 62 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL which fell 1 35 or 4 28 points to trade at 312 68 at the close Exxon Mobil Corp NYSE XOM declined 0 86 or 0 60 points to end at 69 20 and Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ MSFT was down 0 70 or 1 15 points to 162 13
The top performers on the S P 500 were Perrigo Company PLC NYSE PRGO which rose 12 60 to 56 91 Incyte Corporation NASDAQ INCY which was up 5 67 to settle at 81 47 and Apache Corporation NYSE APA which gained 4 94 to close at 33 59
The worst performers were Boston Scientific Corp NYSE BSX which was down 6 18 to 42 6600 in late trade Wells Fargo Company NYSE WFC which lost 5 39 to settle at 49 30 and Martin Marietta Materials Inc NYSE MLM which was down 4 19 to 260 75 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were RTI Surgical Inc NASDAQ RTIX which rose 63 41 to 4 510 Inpixon NASDAQ INPX which was up 54 79 to settle at 5 6500 and IRIDEX Corporation NASDAQ IRIX which gained 48 73 to close at 3 51
The worst performers were Eloxx Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ ELOX which was down 30 34 to 5 280 in late trade Stemline Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ STML which lost 30 33 to settle at 6 570 and Torchlight Energ NASDAQ TRCH which was down 28 88 to 0 6300 at the close
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 1593 to 1240 and 85 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1326 rose and 1324 declined while 75 ended unchanged
Shares in Perrigo Company PLC NYSE PRGO rose to 52 week highs gaining 12 60 or 6 37 to 56 91 Shares in Stemline Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ STML fell to 52 week lows falling 30 33 or 2 860 to 6 570 Shares in Torchlight Energ NASDAQ TRCH fell to 52 week lows losing 28 88 or 0 2559 to 0 6300
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 0 57 to 12 39
Gold Futures for February delivery was down 0 24 or 3 70 to 1546 90 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in February rose 0 09 or 0 05 to hit 58 13 a barrel while the March Brent oil contract fell 0 02 or 0 01 to trade at 64 43 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 00 to 1 1127 while USD JPY rose 0 02 to 110 00
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 07 at 97 125 | 1/14/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft issues critical Windows security fix after tipoff from U S NSA | By Raphael Satter WASHINGTON Reuters Microsoft Corp O MSFT on Tuesday rolled out an important security fix after the U S National Security Agency tipped off the company to a serious flaw in its widely used Windows operating system officials said Microsoft said the flaw could allow a hacker to forge digital certificates used by some versions of Windows to authenticate and secure data Exploiting the flaw could have potentially serious consequences for Windows systems and users The NSA and Microsoft said they had not seen any evidence that the flaw had previously been abused but both urged Windows users to deploy the update as soon as possible NSA official Anne Neuberger noted that operators of classified networks had already been prodded to install the update and everyone else should now expedite the implementation of the patch The Microsoft patch marks the first time the NSA has publicly claimed credit for prompting a software security update although the agency said it has alerted companies in the past to flaws in their products Neuberger said the agency was striving for more transparency with the information security research community Part of building trust is showing the data she told reporters in a call just minutes before the patch went live Experts said the move was unprecedented I have never seen this before said Tenable Chief Executive Amit Yoran who previously served as founding director of the U S Computer Emergency Readiness Team I cannot think of a single instance where government shared a zero day with a vendor and took credit for it he said in an email The NSA faces a balancing act when it comes across such vulnerabilities The agency had been criticized after its cyberspies took advantage of vulnerabilities in Microsoft products to deploy hacking tools against adversaries and kept the Redmond Washington based company in the dark about it for years When one such tool was dramatically leaked to the internet in 2016 it was deployed against targets around the globe by hackers of all stripes In the most dramatic case a group used the tool to unleash a massive malware outbreak dubbed WannaCry in 2017 The data wiping worm wrought global havoc affecting what Europol estimated was some 200 000 computers in more than 150 countries Neuberger did not directly address that controversy in her call but said that the NSA hoped to be a good cybersecurity partner
We re working to evolve our mission she said | 1/14/2020 |
INTC | Top 5 Things to Know in the Market on Thursday 23rd January | By Geoffrey Smith
Investing com China put a second city in lockdown as the number of coronavirus cases continued to rise dramatically from a low base Chinese stocks and crude oil tumbled but Europe s recovered after an early wobble and U S markets are set to open flat The European Central Bank is expected to launch a year long review of its monetary policy strategy and Intel NASDAQ INTC P G and Comcast NASDAQ CMCSA are due to serve up earnings Here s what to know about in financial markets on Thursday 23rd January
1 China in lockdown as virus spreads
China put a second city in lockdown in its attempts to combat the spread of the coronavirus
Having shut down public transportation in and out of Wuhan the origin of the outbreak on Wednesday the authorities announced Thursday that it will stop trains and buses leaving Huanggang a city of 7 5 million people around 45 miles further east Local authorities said they would also close a central market as well as movie theaters internet cafes and other cultural and entertainment centers
The move comes just ahead of the week long Lunar New Year holidays which is peak travel season in China The Communist Party s People s Daily puts the running death toll now at 17 while other reports put the number as high as 25 The number of confirmed cases continues to rise with more cases being reported in China s megacities further east such as Beijing Shanghai and Zhejiang
The World Health Organization has still not designated the outbreak a matter for international concern For context nearly 80 000 people in the U S died of more common strains of influenza in 2018
2 Global stocks steady after Chinese buffeting
Chinese stocks tumbled in response to the authorities actions on Thursday with the tech focused SZSE Component index falling 3 5 and the blue chip China A50 index falling 2 9 The sell off was accelerated by those looking to lock out risk ahead of the week long holiday next week
However European stocks recovered after an initial wobble helped by strong earnings from companies as diverse as French chipmaker STMicroelectronics and U K online fashion retailer Asos
By 6 30 AM ET 1130 GMT Dow futures were effectively flat down less than 10 points while the S P 500 Futures contract was up less than 0 1 The Nasdaq 100 futures contract was a tad over 0 1 higher
Demand for haven assets was mixed with U S Treasury bond yields falling by between one and three basis points Gold futures remained stuck in narrow range above 1 550 a troy ounce
3 Oil tumbles as virus compounds oversupply fears EIA stocks data due
Oil prices tumbled to their lowest in seven weeks as fears about the impact of the virus on Chinese demand continued to dominate
By 6 30 AM ET U S crude futures were down 1 5 at 55 87 a barrel having earlier hit an intraday low of 55 59 its lowest since Dec 2 Brent futures were down 1 3 at 62 38 a barrel
An extra drag came from data released on Wednesday showing a 1 6 million barrel increase in U S crude stocks the second week in a row that supplies had risen amidst expectation of a drop The American Petroleum Institut figures which point to another nascent glut on the domestic market may or may not be corroborated by official government data due at 10 30 AM ET 1530 GMT
4 Lagarde to launch ECB policy review
Christine Lagarde is due to set out the parameters of her review of the European Central Bank s monetary policy after the bank s regular policy making council meeting Lagarde s press conference is due at 8 30 AM ET 1330 GMT
There are no expectations of any change either to the ECB s interest rates asset purchase program or forward guidance The market s focus will consequently be on how Lagarde seeks to redefine the bank s agenda Speculation has bubbled recently that she may use the review to row back on Mario Draghi s commitment to ease policy further if need be fearing the risks to the financial sector that that would entail
5 Intel P G Comcast headline earnings roster
The day s earnings parade begins with consumer product giant Procter Gamble and will be bookended by chipmaker Intel NASDAQ INTC and broadcaster Comcast NASDAQ CMCSA
Intel s figures will be scrutinized for any read across for the rest of achip sector which had a rough 2019 but is expected to rebound strongly this year Comcast s will be of interest chiefly because of what it says about its planned streaming service Peacock which will follow hot on the heels of signs that Netflix NASDAQ NFLX is starting to struggle with competition in the U S market
After the close on Wednesday Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN had fallen 0 6 and brokerage and advisory firm Raymond James fell 4 3 after disappointing quarterly updates | 1/23/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Calm Eyes on Virus Updates | By Peter Nurse
Investing com U S stock markets are set to open largely unchanged Thursday as traders react with understandable caution as the operation to curtail the spreading of the new pneumonia like virus in China ramps up
At 7 15 AM ET 1215 GMT futures for the S P 500 traded 1 point or 0 1 lower Nasdaq 100 Futures 10 points or 0 1 higher while the DJI futures contract fell 30 points or 0 1
Earlier Thursday China authorities issued a travel suspension in Wuhan a city of 11 million at the center of the outbreak of the coronavirus Later they announced the stopping trains and buses leaving neighbouring Huanggang a city of 7 5 million people and the closure of many areas where people could congregate
These were the latest attempts to stop the spread of the disease that has killed at least 17 people and infected hundreds of people in China and as far afield as the U S Thailand Taiwan Japan and the Republic of Korea
That said volumes and volatility could be limited with many in the market keeping an eye on the second day of opening arguments in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump
In corporate news several heavyweights are set to release numbers Thursday as the earnings season picks up
Procter Gamble NYSE PG released its second quarter results ahead of the opening bell and the company s shares are over 2 lower premarket as its sales missed forecasts Shares in Comcast NASDAQ CMCSA climb over 2 premarket after the release of its fourth quarter earnings to all time highs with eyes particularly on news about its Peacock service Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN will also be in the spotlight after the chip maker reported disappointing quarterly earnings after hours Wednesday
Meanwhile after the market close chipmaker Intel NASDAQ INTC will deliver quarterly results but many will be looking at its guidance for any read across for the rest of the chip sector
Elsewhere oil prices tumbled to their lowest in seven weeks after the release of another increase in U S crude stocks Wednesday The American Petroleum Institute figures showed a 1 6 million barrel increase in supply which may or may not be corroborated by official government data due at 10 30 AM ET 1530 GMT
AT 07 15 AM ET 1215 GMT U S crude futures traded 1 6 lower at 55 84 and the international benchmark Brent contract was down 1 3 to 62 36 Gold futures for February delivery on New York s COMEX dropped 0 2 to 1 554 15 | 1/23/2020 |
INTC | From Communist era roots to cash cows Poland s gaming industry takes on the world | By Anna Koper and Michael Kahn WARSAW PRAGUE Reuters The drab exteriors of a pair of 1970s buildings in an industrial Warsaw neighborhood belie the hive of high tech activity inside where developers screenplay writers and others at leading video game maker CD Projekt hustle to create the next global hit Poland Eastern Europe s biggest economy has quietly developed into a leading video game exporter thanks to low labor costs a young educated workforce and a thriving gaming tradition rooted in the Communist era After CD Projekt s top selling Witcher series put the country on the map foreign investors are keenly searching for promising game developers in a fast growing market People are starting to take notice of Poland said Borys Musielak founding partner at U S Polish venture capital firm SMOK Ventures which is in talks with two Asian investors to fund local gaming companies and in January made its first such investment alongside a Finnish partner There have been mainly angel investors and some private equity but now global venture capital groups are looking into the region Poland s booming video game and esports market was worth 664 million in 2019 up from 400 million in 2014 and is projected to climb to nearly 850 million over the next four years according to data from PwC WITCHER The success of CD Projekt s medieval fantasy world Witcher has been a key driver Based on a series of best selling Polish books and the basis for a Netflix NASDAQ NFLX show that premiered in December the games have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide The release later this year of the company s first person futuristic adventure game Cyberpunk 2077 is likely to sharpen focus on a sector in which eight companies listed on the main market of the Polish stock exchange between 2015 and 2019 On the NewConnect market the bourse s exchange for smaller companies 21 debuted during the same period Historically a lot of those companies chose the stock exchange to finance themselves because there were not many ways to raise capital said Mariusz Gasiewski head of mobile gaming and apps at Google NASDAQ GOOGL in Poland Now it is getting easier as more interest comes from abroad The combined value of the listed gaming companies leapt 82 to more than 32 billion zlotys 8 36 billion last year led by CD Projekt 11 bit studios PlayWay and Ten Square NYSE SQ Games according to exchange data Moreover CD Projekt s roughly 27 billion zloty valuation is rapidly catching up with that of Poland s biggest company refiner PKN Orlen at 36 billion zlotys KNOW HOW At CD Projekt whose headquarters feature Silicon Valley perks such as a gym film studio and open plan offices the company has parlayed Poles love of video games into a global brand We have been working intensively on increasing the knowledge of CD Projekt among foreign investors the company s president and one of its founders Adam Kicinski told Reuters We are meeting with funds from around the world focusing on western markets especially in the United States Bigger funding rounds and the tapping of international investors will help Polish companies compete with industry leaders from countries such as China Japan and the U S Due to their know how and appropriate budgets foreign investors help those companies go from the stage where they create very good games to the absolute top said Stanislaw Just a former board member of the Polish Games Association who recently started his own company Flying Wild Hog a smaller developer known for the Shadow Warrior series was acquired by London based Supernova Capital in 2019 while Artificer which is working on its debut game was bought by Dutch based Good Shepherd Entertainment A WORLD WE ALL DREAMED OF Poland s love of video games stems from the Communist era when students flocked to street markets to swap pirated games building up a flourishing community For the previous generation Rock Roll was a ticket to the world we all dreamed of then came the games and we all played to touch what was happening in the West said Grzegorz Miechowski president of 11 bit studios whose most popular title Frostpunk depicts a dystopian 19th Century England Nearly half of Poland s 38 million population identify as gamers while there are around 400 active gaming companies dwarfing an estimated dozen in Germany with some 100 Polish titles hitting the global market each year The country hosts a popular international video game festival as well as one of the largest esports events in the world the Intel NASDAQ INTC Extreme Masters which last year drew a record 232 million viewers worldwide Miechowski also pointed to Poland s education system which churns out computer science savvy graduates eager to work in game development
The government has taken notice too doling out around 300 million zlotys through a European Union funded program the fourth round of which is underway to award developers early stage grants to help gaming projects get off the ground | 1/23/2020 |
INTC | Stocks S P off Lows but Weaker Earnings Virus Jitters Bite | By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing com The S P moved off session lows midday Thursday but remained in the red following weaker earnings and a slump in energy stocks
The S P 500 fell 0 21 The Dow fell 0 3 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0 1
Energy stocks were pushed lower on a slump in oil prices as data showed a lower than expected draw in U S weekly crude supplies while reports of increased fatalities in China from the coronavirus exacerbated concerns about oil demand
If the epidemic spreads and we start to see the flight cancellations spread to other countries and airports in Asia it would certainly have a significant hit on jet fuel demand and therefore crude oil Schork Report Editor Stephen Schork said and highlighted the impact on oil from previous epidemics like the Avian Flu virus in 1997 and the Sars in 2003
A mostly weaker raft of earnings meanwhile did little to reverse sentiment on stocks
Procter Game slipped nearly 2 after its quarterly results missed estimates on the bottom line while Comcast NASDAQ CMCSA fell 3 despite reporting better than expected earnings
For airlines Southwest Airlines NYSE LUV and American Airlines NASDAQ AAL shrugged off mixed quarterly reports rising about 2 and 1 respectively
In tech meanwhile chip stocks were roughly flat after industry bellwether Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN better than expected quarterly earnings a day earlier Chip stocks will remain in focus as Intel NASDAQ INTC readies its quarterly earnings after the bell | 1/23/2020 |
MSFT | Tech Leads Stocks to Record Highs Bonds Decline Markets Wrap | Bloomberg U S equities rose to records led by shares of technology companies in a week expected to be dominated by the start of earnings season and the signing of a partial China trade deal
Apple NASDAQ AAPL Tesla NASDAQ TSLA and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT pushed the S P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index to all time intraday highs Gains extended after the U S was said to plan to lift its designation of China as a currency manipulator Earnings from some of the biggest U S banks kick off the season Tuesday amid forecasts that overall corporate profits will show the smallest growth in three years
Our expectation is a solid earnings season nothing extraordinary but nothing really terrible Kristina Hooper chief global market strategist at Invesco told Bloomberg TV The environment is so accommodative that it really is supportive of risk assets including equities even if we have a lackluster earnings season
The pound led declines among Group of 10 currencies after another Bank of England official pointed to a potential vote for a U K interest rate cut this month and data showed the economy unexpectedly shrank Germany s benchmark bund yield headed for least negative closing level since May The offshore yuan strengthened past 6 9 per dollar for the first time since July
The dollar edged higher and Treasuries fell across the curve as the completion of the first trade deal nears President Donald Trump has said the U S and China will sign the accord on Wednesday The U S in August first formally labeled China a currency manipulator a move that further escalated the trade war with Beijing after the country s central bank allowed the yuan to fall in retaliation to new U S tariffs
The consumer is super strong the economy is strong but slowing The Fed s on the sidelines China s on the sidelines now as a headline and we dodged the giant bullet with Iran no pun intended said Nancy Tengler chief investment strategist at Tengler Wealth Management And so what you have is no news and everything is kind of OK
Elsewhere equities advanced in all major Asian markets except Japan where there s a holiday and Australia Oil fluctuated after last week posting its steepest loss since July
Here are some events to watch for this week
Phase one of the U S China trade deal is set to be signed on Wednesday in Washington The biggest American financial institutions kick off earnings season including JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM Co Citigroup Inc NYSE C Wells Fargo NYSE WFC Co Bank of America Corp NYSE BAC Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE GS Morgan Stanley NYSE MS and BlackRock Inc NYSE BLK The U S releases inflation data for December on Tuesday The Fed s so called beige book is due on Wednesday China GDP comes on Friday These are some of the moves in major markets | 1/13/2020 |
INTC | Apple lawsuit tests if an employee can plan rival startup while on payroll | By Stephen Nellis Reuters Attorneys for a former Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL executive on Tuesday will try to convince a skeptical judge of a core tenet of tech startup culture that employees can plan a competing venture while still in a job Apple s lawsuit against a former chip executive turned rival will have implications for employees all over California who are considering striking out on their own and creating the startups that drive tech business and culture California s long held public policy favors employee mobility in contrast to states that allow strong non compete agreements That stance allowed for the traitorous eight who left their jobs at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory for a rival in the late 1950s and who eventually spawned dozens of companies including Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Apple filed the lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court against Gerard Williams NYSE WMB III who left the company last year after more than nine years as chief architect for the custom processors that power iPhones and iPads to start Nuvia Inc which is designing chips for servers Judge Mark H Pierce last week issued a tentative ruling allowing the case to proceed but barring Apple from seeking punitive damages Pierce will decide after a hearing on Tuesday whether to make his ruling final Apple sued Williams in August alleging that he breached an intellectual property agreement and a duty of loyalty to the company by planning his new startup while on company time at Apple spending hours on the phone with colleagues who eventually joined the venture Apple declined to comment on the case Through a spokesman Williams declined to comment Apple is not suing Nuvia itself or any of Williams co founders and it did not allege any intellectual property or trade secret theft According to a copy of Williams agreement that Apple attached to its complaint the contract required that Williams will not plan or engage in any other employment that competes with Apple or is directly related to the company In a filing in November Williams argued that Apple s contract was unenforceable because California law allows employees to make some preparations to compete while still in their current job Even in California there are limits said Cliff Palefsky a prominent San Francisco based employment attorney Workers can lay some plans for a competitor on their own time but recruiting fellow employees on company time gets a little dicey In his tentative ruling Pierce wrote that an employee is not permitted to plan and prepare to create a competitive enterprise prior to termination if the employee does so on their employer s time and with the employer s resources The case will likely hinge the specific facts of Williams planning for Nuvia Palefsky said Given that work at modern tech jobs rarely sticks to traditional business hours it may be difficult to untangle whether calls were made during company time or personal time That phrase that you can t plan to compete raises a very interesting question of whether Apple s contract is violative of the public policy and whether the courts are going to enforce it he said This is going to be some groundbreaking stuff one way or the other
The court has not set a trial date | 1/21/2020 |
INTC | Wall St pulls back from records on worries about virus outbreak and global growth | Reuters Wall Street lost ground on Tuesday backing away from record highs as a viral outbreak from China found its way to U S shores and the International Monetary Fund IMF lowered its global economic growth forecast
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 151 25 points or 0 52 to 29 196 85 the S P 500 SPX lost 8 75 points or 0 26 to 3 320 87 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC dropped 18 14 points or 0 19 to 9 370 81 | 1/21/2020 |
INTC | Stocks S P Pares Gains as China s New Virus Spreads | Investing com The S P closed about flat Wednesday as news of more deaths from the deadly flu like virus that originated in China soured investor sentiment but losses were kept in check by ongoing momentum in tech
The S P 500 added 0 03 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0 14 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average sipped 0 03
Late selling unfolded ahead of the close as sentiment was hit on reports that the death toll from the coronavirus had increased to 17 raising fears of contagion
But tech stocks continued to shine driven by a pop in shares of IBM NYSE IBM as investors cheered Big Blue s return to revenue growth and quarterly results beat
Chip stocks also led the charge higher for tech with Intel NASDAQ INTC and Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN rising 3 and 2 respectively as chipmaker ASML s NASDAQ ASML bullish outlook for the sector lifted investor sentiment
A fall in Netflix NASDAQ NFLX however kept a lid on tech as the streaming giant s weaker outlook on growth raised concerns about the impact of rising competition from rivals like Walt Disney NYSE DIS
Elsewhere Tesla NASDAQ TSLA eased from highs to end the day up 4 following bullish remarks from Wedbush who raised its price target on the stock by nearly 50 to 580 on expectations of increased demand from China
Energy meanwhile slumped after the International Energy Agency warned of surplus in oil supplies by 1 million barrels per day in the first half of this year | 1/22/2020 |
INTC | Stocks Edge Higher in Choppy Trading Oil Sinks Markets Wrap | Bloomberg U S stocks edged higher in volatile trading as investors considered the potential for a virus that emerged in China to eventually dent economic growth Oil tumbled on concern the market is oversupplied
The S P 500 Index ended the day up less than 0 1 lifted by gains in technology shares and positive earnings reports but held back by concern that the deadly respiratory illness could spread even as China moved to contain the outbreak IBM NYSE IBM rose the most in four months after revenue beat estimates Tesla NASDAQ TSLA Inc s market value soared past 100 billion
With stocks trading near records investors are on alert for any developments that could derail the momentum They have taken a cautious stance amid concern the coronavirus that has already killed 17 people could turn into a global pandemic
The fear is that it could hurt growth that this could continue to have an impact on global markets that are already reeling from the impacts of trade said Matt Forester chief investment officer at BNY Mellon s Lockwood Advisors
Elsewhere the Stoxx Europe 600 Index dipped as Italian banks slumped amid a fresh bout of political turmoil
West Texas oil fell below 58 a barrel as ample global supplies offset the loss of exports from Libya The pound strengthened after Prime Minister Boris Johnson s Brexit deal cleared its final hurdles in Parliament
Here are some events to watch out for this week
Companies including Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN Inc Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and Procter Gamble Co will post results Policy decisions are due from central banks in Indonesia and the euro region The World Economic Forum the annual gathering of global leaders in politics business and culture continues in Davos Switzerland These are the main moves in markets
Stocks
The S P 500 Index rose less than 0 1 at the close of trade in New York The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0 1 The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0 6 Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0 1 The British pound jumped 0 6 to 1 3134 The euro rose 0 1 to 1 109 The Japanese yen was little changed at 109 87 per dollar Bonds
The yield on 10 year Treasuries fell one basis point to 1 77 Germany s 10 year yield dipped one basis point to 0 26 Britain s 10 year yield was little changed at 0 63 Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 2 9 to 56 67 a barrel Gold was little changed at 1 558 55 an ounce | 1/22/2020 |
MSFT | Stocks S P Nasdaq Hit All Time Highs as Tech Continues to Shine | Investing com The S P 500 closed at record highs on Monday as sentiment on U S China trade received a boost on reports that the White House will no longer label China a currency manipulator That comes just days ahead of the expected conclusion of the phase one trade deal
The S P 500 rose 0 7 while the Nasdaq Composite surged 1 04 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0 28
The White House plans to remove its designation of China as a currency manipulator according to published reports
The U S government last summer tagged China with the label of currency manipulator when tensions between Washington and Beijing threatened to boil over
The news helped raised optimism ahead of the U S and China signing the first phase of their trade deal on Wednesday
The phase one trade deal would halt any escalations in tit for tat tariffs and roll back some existing U S tariffs in Chinese goods
The positive sentiment on trade coupled with bullish calls from Wall Street on tech heavyweights like Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT helped tech stocks continued their march higher
Apple closed at record highs after DA Davidson hiked its price target on the tech giant amid expectations it will roll out 5G iPhones later this year
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT ended the day more than 1 higher after Credit Suisse raised its price target on the tech giant to 180 from 155
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA surged 9 topping 500 for the first time underpinned by a target price hike from Oppenheimer to 612 from 358
Industrials meanwhile also played a part in the broader market rally led by gains in General Electric NYSE GE on bullish remarks from Deutsche Bank
We see the potential for GE to deliver a beat in 4Q19 and 2020 guidance that suggests upside to current consensus at the midpoint of the range Deutsche Bank DE DBKGn said
Healthcare however proved an exception to broader rally as news that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had taken the lead in Iowa raised concerns about the private healthcare insurance market
Sanders has backed proposals for a universal Medicare plan where people could be guaranteed coverage without using private insurance
Cigna NYSE CI and UnitedHealth Group NYSE UNH slipped about 3 while Centene NYSE CNC fell about 2
Energy meanwhile was roughly unchanged as oil prices slipped to five week lows down 1 6 as oversupply worries resurfaced amid softer seasonal demand | 1/13/2020 |
MSFT | Amazon to seek order to block Microsoft from working on DoD s JEDI contract | Reuters Amazon com Inc O AMZN will ask a judge to temporarily block Microsoft Corp O MSFT from working on a 10 billion cloud contract from the Pentagon a court filing showed on Monday
Amazon which was seen as a favorite for the contract plans to file a motion for a temporary restraining order on Jan 24 and a federal court will issue its decision on Feb 11 according to the filing
The e commerce giant has blamed U S President Donald Trump of exerting improper pressure and bias that led the U S Department of Defense DoD to award the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud JEDI contract to Microsoft
The Department of Defense has stood by its decision with its Secretary Mark Esper rejecting any suggestion of bias and saying the decision was conducted freely and fairly without any outside influence
The JEDI contract is part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon meant to make it more technologically agile Specifically a goal of JEDI is to give the military better access to data and the cloud from battlefields and other remote locations
Microsoft did not have a comment on Amazon s intent to file the motion Amazon did not respond to a request for comment and the DoD could not be immediately reached | 1/14/2020 |
MSFT | Stocks JPMorgan Up Wells Fargo Down in Premarket on Mixed Q4 | By Geoffrey Smith
Investing com Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Tuesday 14th January Please refresh for updates
8 46 AM ET GameStop NYSE GME stock was down 12 9 at a four month low after reporting late Thursday that sales in the nine week holiday season fell 28 from a year earlier Comparable sales were down 25 The company also forecast a loss for the current fiscal year when it reports at the end of March
8 40 AM ET Aecom Technology NYSE ACM stock was up 4 1 at a new all time high after a Bloomberg report saying that Canadian professional services company WSP Global had approached it about a deal
8 32 AM ET Citigroup NYSE C stock was up 0 5 after its fourth quarter revenue and earnings came in 3 ahead of expectations The results were driven by a 49 rise in fixed income trading revenue in the quarter The bank s global consumer division also posted an 8 5 billion increase in revenue
8 27 AM ET Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT stock was down 0 1 after reports that Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN is seeking a court order to block it from working on a 10 billion Cloud computing contract from the Pentagon
According to Reuters who cited a court filing Amazon NASDAQ AMZN plans to file a motion for a temporary restraining order on Jan 24 and a federal court will issue its decision on Feb 11
8 21 AM ET Beyond Meat NASDAQ BYND rose another 10 3 extending a rally that has already seen it rise 50 since the end of last year
There s been no single catalyst for the increase but a number of analysts have flagged what they see as an inevitable march toward mainstream status for plant based meat alternatives in their outlooks for 2020
The stock is still over 50 below where it peaked in the euphoria after its IPO last year
8 17 AM ET Visa NYSE V stock was up 0 2 on course for a fifth straight record high after announcing the acquisition of fintech startup Plaid for 5 3 billion The acquisition reflects the company s efforts to ensure that its dominant position in global payments today isn t eroded by new technologies that bypass cards
8 10 AM ET JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM stock was 1 1 higher coming back off earlier highs after convincingly beating forecasts for fourth quarter revenue and earnings Earnings per share rose nearly 30 on the year a comparison flattered by volatility in global markets at the end of 2018 but 8 annual growth in consumer loans showed the bank s core business was still going strong
Wells Fargo NYSE WFC stock was down 2 8 after missing expectations on both top and bottom lines as litigation related expenses drove it to an operating loss Income from the bank s core business also fell in the fourth quarter while risk provisioning rose
Delta Air Lines NYSE DAL stock was up 3 4 after strong demand for travel and lower fuel costs helped it to beat forecasts for fourth quarter earnings per share by over 20 The company has escaped disruption to its schedules by virtue of not having the grounded Boeing NYSE BA 737 MAX in its fleet However the midpoint of its earnings guidance range for 2020 7 25 a share represents a slight drop from 2019 s 7 31 | 1/14/2020 |
INTC | Global stocks stay near record highs focus turns to central banks earnings | By Dhara Ranasinghe LONDON Reuters World stocks traded just below record highs on Monday pausing ahead of this week s central bank meetings economic data and earnings while oil prices rose to their highest in over a week after blockades began shutting down two Libyan oilfields European equity markets were lower while U S stock futures dipped with trading subdued on the Martin Luther King Jr holiday in the United States Still MSCI s s all country index is up almost 2 5 for the first three weeks of the year as an easing in U S China trade tensions and signs that the worst may be over for the world economy bolster sentiment The S P 500 a broad gauge of U S shares has gained just over 3 and the tech heavy Nasdaq almost 5 In Asia MSCI s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0 25 on Monday after rising to its highest since June 2018 Japan s Nikkei gained 0 2 to near its highest in 15 months In China the blue chip CSI300 index rose 0 7 The yuan rose to a six month high U S corporate earnings this week include Netflix NASDAQ NFLX Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and Texas Instruments NASDAQ TXN while the European Central Bank Bank of Canada and Bank of Japan hold policy meetings Optimism is high mainly though because we appear to have clicked back to a world of growth enthusiasm said Chris Bailey European Strategist at Raymond James in London The upcoming earnings season is going to be fascinating Netflix and Intel on Tuesday and Thursday in the U S are going to be insightful re the tech sector whilst UBS tomorrow ASML on Wednesday and Ericsson BS ERICAs Friday will be helpful on perceptions towards Europe EVENT PACKED WEEK The Bank of Japan meets on Tuesday while the ECB is expected to open a key strategic policy review when it meets on Thursday Friday brings the release of key business activity data while the World Economic Forum in Davos is also in focus with U S President Donald Trump expected to discuss trade disputes with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Oil prices rose to their highest in more than a week after two large oil fields in Libya began shutting down after forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar closed a pipeline Brent crude futures were last up 0 7 at 65 31 a barrel U S crude jumped 0 6 to 59 The dollar rose to its strongest level of 2020 after last week s run of data confirmed that the U S economy is holding up well Figures on Friday showed U S homebuilding surged to a 13 year high in December and a gauge of manufacturing activity rebounded to its highest in eight months The dollar edged up 0 1 against a basket of currencies with the index rising as high as 97 727 its strongest since Dec 24 The euro was down at 1 1085 In 2020 we don t expect the pace of growth to slow as much as it did last year said Mark Haefele chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management Accommodative policy and the reduction of downside risk following the signing of the Phase 1 U S China trade deal will help support the economy and risk assets Sterling came under some selling pressure after British finance minister Sajid Javid stoked fears about weak ties with the European Union following Britain s departure from the bloc
Elsewhere gold gained to around 1 560 an ounce after reaching a seven year high earlier this month at the height of Iran U S tensions | 1/20/2020 |
MSFT | Tech Sector Leads Stocks Higher Bonds Decline Markets Wrap | Bloomberg U S equities rose led by shares of technology companies in a week expected to be dominated by the start of earnings season and the signing of a partial China trade deal
Apple NASDAQ AAPL Tesla NASDAQ TSLA and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT pushed the Nasdaq Composite Index higher The Stoxx Europe 600 swung from a gain to a loss while major indexes in Asia closed higher Earnings from some of the biggest U S banks kick off the season Tuesday amid forecasts that overall corporate profits will show the smallest growth in three years
Our expectation is a solid earnings season nothing extraordinary but nothing really terrible Kristina Hooper chief global market strategist at Invesco told Bloomberg TV The environment is so accommodative that it really is supportive of risk assets including equities even if we have a lackluster earnings season
The pound led declines among Group of 10 currencies after another Bank of England official pointed to a potential vote for a U K interest rate cut this month and data showed the economy unexpectedly shrank Germany s benchmark bund yield headed for least negative closing level since May The offshore yuan strengthened past 6 9 per dollar for the first time since July
The dollar edged higher and Treasuries fell across the curve as the completion of the first trade deal nears President Donald Trump has said the U S and China will sign the accord on Wednesday
The consumer is super strong the economy is strong but slowing The Fed s on the sidelines China s on the sidelines now as a headline and we dodged the giant bullet with Iran no pun intended said Said Nancy Tengler chief investment strategist at Tengler Wealth Management And so what you have is no news and everything is kind of OK
Elsewhere equities advanced in all major Asian markets except Japan where there s a holiday and Australia Oil fluctuated after last week posting its steepest loss since July
Here are some events to watch for this week
Phase one of the U S China trade deal is set to be signed on Wednesday in Washington The biggest American financial institutions kick off earnings season including JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM Co Citigroup Inc NYSE C Wells Fargo NYSE WFC Co Bank of America Corp NYSE BAC Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE GS Morgan Stanley NYSE MS and BlackRock Inc NYSE BLK The U S releases inflation data for December on Tuesday The Fed s so called beige book is due on Wednesday China GDP comes on Friday These are some of the moves in major markets | 1/13/2020 |
INTC | Intel loses bear on 2020 potential | Jefferies upgrades Intel NASDAQ INTC from Underperform to Hold seeing the potential for dramatic change in 2020 and 2021 due to management team changes
Analyst Mark Lipacis says restructuring could boost Intel s earnings FCF and stock price
The restructuring could include divesting the memory business cutting SG A spending and selling its fabs to transition to a fabless model
Jefferies raises its Intel target from 40 to 64
Intel shares are down 0 2 pre market to 59 51 The company has a Neutral average Sell Side rating | 1/21/2020 |
INTC | Intel cutting PC processor prices report | Intel NASDAQ INTC will cut the processor prices starting in H2 according to Digitimes sources
Intel is reportedly discounting the processors to maintain its market dominance against Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD
Related Last week Intel discontinued its M series Cascade Lake Xeon chips and cut the prices on the L series CPUs
Intel shares are down 0 3 pre market to 59 42 AMD shares are down 0 3 to 50 79 | 1/21/2020 |
MSFT | BitPay Integration Lets Users Buy Gold With Cryptocurrency | OneGold an online marketplace for buying selling and redeeming precious metals announced a partnership with BitPay on Jan 13 that will allow crypto users to purchase gold and other valuable metals on Android and iOS devices
Through the integration with BitPay a leading Bitcoin payment service provider that currently supports over 30 000 merchants including Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Avnet OneGold s new mobile app will accept payments in Bitcoin BTC Bitcoin Cash BCH Ether ETH and various stablecoins In addition BitPay customers will save 2 when using the service on OneGold com | 1/13/2020 |
MSFT | Walkie Talkie from Microsoft Teams Samsung | Cue the Nextel flashbacks Samsung Electronics OTC SSNLF and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT are bringing back Push to Talk technology with the Galaxy XCover Pro
The smartphone features a button that initiates a chat using Microsoft s Teams app and is being marketed to firstline workers
It reduces licensing and provisioning costs and it s one less device for the employee to carry said Emma Williams Microsoft s corporate vice president for Office verticals | 1/13/2020 |
MSFT | Wedbush expects Microsoft to run higher | Wedbush says it s incrementally confident in the firm s bullish thesis on Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT after recent checks The firm keeps an Outperform rating on Microsoft due in part to the stronger than expected Azure deal flow seen in the field Analyst Dan Ives says Redmond remains in an enviable position heading into 2020 on the heels of its cloud success as it continues to fire on all cylinders Enterprise customers and partners we have spoken to over the past few weeks indicate a clear acceleration of larger and more strategic enterprise cloud deals as Redmond is poised to win the majority of the next phase of cloud deployments vs the likes of Amazon and Bezos he observes Ives and team lift their price target on MSFT to 195 from 185 and set a bull case valuation on MSFT of 210 vs the average sell side PT of 165 79 Shares of Microsoft traded at a new high of 160 80 yesterday Shares of Microsoft are up 0 84 premarket | 1/9/2020 |
INTC | Taiwan s TSMC forecasts sharp rise in first quarter revenue bets on robust 5G demand | By Yimou Lee
TAIPEI Reuters Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd TSMC forecast an up to 45 spike in January March revenue and raised its capex plan for the year betting robust demand for 5G smartphones would dial up profits at the world s top contract chipmaker
The promising outlook from TSMC a proxy for global tech demand given it has clients like Apple NASDAQ AAPL Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM and Huawei HWT UL comes as a strong uptake of 5G smartphones is fuelling an overall recovery in the global smartphone market that has shrunk for the past three years
TSMC said it expects revenue over January March to reach 10 2 billion 10 3 billion versus 7 1 billion a year ago
Moving into first quarter 2020 despite mobile product seasonality we anticipate our business to be supported by the continued ramp up of 5G smartphones Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang said at a briefing on Thursday after TSMC earlier reported a better than expected profit for the fourth quarter
However the outlook assumes no disruption caused by the China U S trade war The world s two largest economies signed an initial trade deal on Wednesday but with numerous thorny issues still unresolved
The United States has in particular pressured Huawei believing it a potential security threat despite the Chinese company s repeated denials
The company sees any disruption will be short lived and for example commented that smaller telco infrastructure suppliers can quickly pick up the shortfall if Huawei can t deploy 5G as planned analysts at Bernstein wrote in a note
We find that too optimistic and believe the short term impact will be notable
TSMC s October December net profit rose 16 1 year on year to T 116 035 billion 3 88 billion above an average forecast of T 111 41 billion drawn from 19 analysts by Refinitiv
Revenue rose 10 6 to 10 39 billion versus the company s estimate of 10 2 billion to 10 3 billion and an average 10 55 billion estimate from 21 analysts
Our fourth quarter business benefited from strong demand for high end smartphones initial 5G deployment and high performance computing related applications using TSMC s industry leading 7 nanometer technology Huang said
The 7 nanometer is one of the most advanced technology TSMC uses for its high end semiconductors
TSMC expects the global market for foundry chipmaking contract chip manufacturing to grow 17 this year outstripping an 8 rise in the semiconductor market worldwide
It raised its estimate for capital expenditure to 15 16 billion for 2020 versus an earlier forecast of a level similar to its estimated capex for 2019 which was 14 15 billion In the end it spent 14 9 billion in 2019
RISING SMARTPHONE DEMAND
The higher capex allocation comes amid forecasts for rising smartphone demand Industry tracker IDC sees global smartphone shipments topping 1 4 billion units in 2020 up 1 5 on year which should bode well for chipmaker TSMC
Reflecting growing optimism for the tech sector TSMC shares hit a record high this month after gaining more than 50 in 2019
Investor sentiment should get a further boost from a Phase 1 trade deal agreed this week between the United States and China that is expected to defuse their 18 month trade war which has weighed on the global economy and the tech industry
Looking into 2020 21 we believe TSMC s position in advanced technology nodes remains solid given its greater capacity yield rate control execution and diversified customer base KGI analyst Laura Chen wrote in a January report prior to the earnings announcement
Japan s Nikkei reported this week that the United States had increased pressure on TSMC to make military use chips there free from any potential Chinese interference China claims Taiwan as its own territory
TSMC declined to comment on the report reiterating that the company is always evaluating the idea of making chips everywhere
Company chairman Mark Liu said a decision will be made based on the best interest of their clients
We listen to our customers as our priority he said In the future right now it s too early to say Our customers prefer us to have the lowest cost production site in doing business with us
To overcome geopolitical changes TSMC will continue to be the industry s leader so that people will have to come to you he added That s how we maintain being everyone s foundry
Shares in TSMC closed down 1 62 versus a 0 21 fall in the wider market valuing the company at almost 295 billion bigger than U S rival Intel NASDAQ INTC Corp s 256 billion It reported results after the market closed | 1/16/2020 |
INTC | Exclusive Cyber security firm McAfee hires new CEO | By Jessica DiNapoli and Joshua Franklin
Reuters McAfee LLC told Reuters on Thursday it has hired Peter Leav the former CEO of BMC Software as its new CEO replacing Chris Young who created the cyber security company in its current form by carving it out of Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC four years ago
The move gives McAfee the option of pursuing an initial public offering with a new leader It has also considered deals in the sector including potentially merging with NortonLifeLock Inc
Young will become a senior advisor at buyout firm TPG which acquired a majority stake in McAfee from Intel Corp in 2016 in a deal which valued the company at 4 2 billion including debt Young will work with TPG on new technology investments
During Young s tenure the company saw mid single digit revenue growth according to a person familiar with the matter
Leav previously served as president and CEO of BMC a business software firm for three years He left in 2019 a few months after the completion of private equity firm KKR Co s 8 5 billion buyout of the company He will start as McAfee CEO on Feb 3
Peter has exactly the right mix of experience and expertise to lead McAfee in its next phase of growth said TPG co CEO and McAfee Chairman Jon Winkelried
The global cyber security industry was valued at 116 5 billion in 2018 and is forecast to grow around 11 per year through to 2025 as the number of cyber security threats continues to rise according to research firm Grand View Research
TPG has yet to make a decision on the timing or manner of its exit from McAfee according to a person familiar with the matter
In the last few years McAfee has managed to grow its main cyber security software business which focuses on consumers through price increases new partner programs and good retention rates according credit ratings agency Moody s Investors Service Inc This growth has been partially offset however by weakness in its business of serving other companies which remains competitive according to Moody s
In November NortonLifeLock previously called Symantec NASDAQ NLOK sold its enterprise business serving other companies to chip maker Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO Inc for 10 7 billion | 1/16/2020 |
INTC | Global Stock Gains Build on Economic Optimism Markets Wrap | Bloomberg Asian stocks climbed and the global record setting rally showed little sign of letting up amid signs of strong American consumer demand Treasuries dipped after the Treasury announced issuance plans
Shares opened higher in Japan South Korea and Australia Futures on the S P 500 nudged up after the gauge on Thursday climbed to a fresh all time high Helping sentiment data showed U S retail sales strengthened in December Technology shares advanced and Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s market valuation hit 1 trillion for the first time Treasuries slipped as the Treasury said it will start issuing 20 year debt in the first half of 2020 as its expands its roster of securities
With an initial trade deal between the U S and China now signed and investor optimism over easing tensions helping to drive global equities to record highs attention is turning to corporate and economic data Friday brings China GDP along with key monthly data for December and the earnings season continues to ramp up with the likes of Procter Gamble Co and Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC reporting next week
It s very hard to be bearish here Linda Duessel senior equity strategist at Federated Investors Management Co told Bloomberg TV We could have really good earnings surprises to the upside as more profit reports roll in she said
Elsewhere crude oil edged higher while gold was steady above 1 500 an ounce
These are some of the main moves in markets
Stocks
Futures on the S P 500 Index gained 0 1 as of 9 01 a m in Tokyo The underlying gauge rose 0 8 on Thursday Japan s Topix index gained 0 5 South Korea s Kospi index advanced 0 6 Australia s S P ASX 200 Index rose 0 6 Currencies
The yen was at 110 22 per dollar The offshore yuan held at 6 8775 per dollar The euro bought 1 1136 little changed Bonds
The yield on 10 year Treasuries rose one basis point to 1 82 Australia s 10 year yield remained at 1 18 Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude oil rose 0 2 to 58 62 a barrel Gold dipped less than 0 1 to 1 552 22 an ounce | 1/16/2020 |
MSFT | How Big Tech is helping transform cars into smartphones | By Jane Lanhee Lee and Stephen Nellis LAS VEGAS Reuters Technology companies transformed smartphones and televisions into continuous fountains of revenue Now big tech wants to work with automakers to do the same thing for your car With the widespread rollout of autonomous vehicles still years away the two industries have converged on the idea of cars providing services and features delivered over the air that is over the same wireless data networks used by smart phones Those services streaming video vehicle performance upgrades dashboard commerce could answer a pressing need for automakers They need to learn how to milk their hardware for revenue long after vehicles roll off dealers lots Tech companies see cars and the time people spend in them as a new frontier for growth Both auto and tech companies used the big CES technology show here this week to showcase their determination to make the vision of vehicles as connected revenue machines a reality Cloud computing giants Amazon com Inc O AMZN and Microsoft Corp O MSFT were in the forefront chasing the opportunity to manage torrents of data flowing to and from connected vehicles It s absolutely huge General Motors Co N GM President Mark Reuss said in December of the opportunities to generate revenue after a vehicle is sold by providing streamed services and over the air upgrades facilitated by GM s new high capacity onboard electrical system The pivot comes at a time when global automakers are looking for fresh revenue sources as sales slow and as rising costs to comply with tougher emissions standards threaten profit margins Shares of legacy automakers such as Ford Motor Co N F and GM badly lagged broader market indexes in 2019 The contrast is Tesla Inc O TSLA whose market cap on Wednesday for the first time exceeded Ford and GM s combined market values Tesla pioneered the model for charging for over the air upgrades now asking customers to pay 6 000 to turn on the full self driving option Other automakers are eager to try their hand at turning cars into upgradeable revenue generating gadgets Chinese carmaker Byton s new M Byte sedan features a 48 inch screen as a dashboard as well as a steering wheel display and a digital tablet for passengers When parked the car can be an office enabling video conference calls or a roadside cinema BMW DE BMWG showed at its CES display a concept of its future interior with reclining lounge chairs and a windshield with augmented reality built in to annotate the road ahead BMW executive Klaus Froehlich told Reuters the automaker is seeking approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to get U S approval for the seats but could not say when they would appear in production Tech companies and suppliers want to accelerate the transformation of vehicles into subscription bundle ready machines by helping automakers sort out the tangle of computer chips that make most current vehicles difficult or impossible to upgrade over the air The current crazy quilt of vehicle processors is not cost effective and it s hard to get vehicles developed and launched so that everything works all the time said Glen De Vos chief technology officer of auto supplier Aptiv Plc N APTV Aptiv s solution A new Smart Vehicle Architecture that consolidates most computerized functions Harman a unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd KS 005930 is also pushing a similar digital platform to control the flow of data in and out of the car A centralized system said Chief Executive Dinesh Paliwal would help protect the car against hackers who would have only one way in rather than dozens Harman which supplies some of the technology that automakers including Tesla use to deliver the over the air upgrades plans to sell its new vehicle computing brain with cybersecurity features built in but some car buyers will have to pay to turn it on Qualcomm Inc O QCOM which already provides the cellular modem chips that allow vehicles to connect to the internet introduced a more comprehensive computing system that can manage in vehicle entertainment and help the car drive itself One element is a much easier way for automakers and their partners to deliver feature upgrades such as unlocking a better sound system already built into the car NXP Semiconductors O NXPI is working on a chip that would serve as a gateway between the car and the cloud to help automakers cope with the massive amounts of data that sensors and digital cockpits will create That data has to be stored and managed and that s where cloud computing providers such as Amazon Web Services come in AWS announced at CES a partnership with BlackBerry to develop a new software platform for connected vehicles | 1/9/2020 |
MSFT | LinkedIn latest tech company to unveil new Dublin campus | DUBLIN Reuters Microsoft s LinkedIn NYSE LNKD became the latest technology company to establish a new campus in Dublin on Friday when it signed a 25 year lease to add three adjacent office blocks to its new European headquarters
The social network for professionals said last June that it would increase its Irish based workforce to 2 000 from 1 200 over the next year as it moved into a new 14 000 square meter 150 000 square feet head office by the end of 2020
LinkedIn agreed to add the remaining 40 000 square meters of office space at the Wilton Park development in central Dublin the campus landlord IPUT the largest owner of offices in Dublin said in a statement
The move provides the U S technology company with enough capacity to grow its headcount by more than 4 000 workers the Irish Times reported Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT separately employs 2 000 people elsewhere in Dublin
Ireland is the European hub for a number of major technology firms Facebook NASDAQ FB signed the largest ever office lease in Dublin in 2018 with plans for a new 57 000 square meter campus while Google NASDAQ GOOGL bought a 37 000 square meter development earlier that year to add to its other offices in the city
The expansions by some of the world s biggest companies come as new global rules are considered on how and where big internet firms pay tax that could test multinationals commitment to Ireland where they pay a low 12 5 corporate tax rate
The Irish state agency competing to win foreign business said this week that there was no indication that companies were thinking differently about Ireland based on what tax reforms may emerge
IDA Ireland reported that employment by multinationals rose 6 year on year in 2019 almost three times the rate across Ireland s fast growing economy Foreign companies now employ almost 250 000 people or just over one in 10 Irish workers | 1/10/2020 |
MSFT | Alphabet legal head Drummond exits giving its new CEO chance to shake up team | By Paresh Dave Reuters Alphabet s new Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on Friday gained the opportunity to reshape the leadership of Google s parent with the exit of Chief Legal Officer David Drummond whose outsized strategic role was overshadowed by employee concerns about his personal relationship with a subordinate Drummond also senior vice president of corporate development had been with Google since its start in 1998 He incorporated the company as outside counsel winning the business of co founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin He later spent nearly 18 years as the company s top lawyer and one of its few black executives Scrutiny centered on Drummond as the board last year investigated the company s handling of sexual misconduct complaints throughout its workforce and he became a lightning rod for criticism about what some employees viewed as tolerance for poor behavior Pichai now has his first big chance to make his mark on Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL leadership since Page and Brin left him day to day reins of the company last month Drummond s last day is Jan 31 and a replacement has not been decided yet Alphabet said With Larry and Sergey now leaving their executive roles at Alphabet the company is entering an exciting new phase and I believe that it s also the right time for me to make way for the next generation of leaders Drummond said in an email to employees shared by Google Some employees had questioned Drummond s role at the company after the New York Times in 2018 reported on an extramarital affair he had with subordinate Jennifer Blakely starting in 2004 She told the paper that she was effectively forced to transfer teams to comply with Google s workplace dating policy Blakely had a son with Drummond but in August 2019 she publicly criticized him for not providing support Drummond responded in a statement calling himself far from perfect Blakely did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday Some shareholders have urged Alphabet to make changes that had been within Drummond s purview including greater financial transparency bigger share buybacks and a management shakeup Alphabet shares have risen 6 5 this month as analysts expressed optimism about possible changes In a departure from company norm Drummond is not receiving an exit pay package In recent weeks Drummond sold more than 200 million worth of his Alphabet shares leaving him with about 90 million in company stock He remains a defendant alongside other executives in a lawsuit shareholders brought last year accusing Alphabet leadership of covering up sexual harassment scandals within the company including by awarding lavish exit packages to two top executives found responsible for misconduct While we are glad to see Mr Drummond is no longer with Alphabet we still intend to hold him accountable for fiduciary breaches through our litigation said Julie Goldsmith Reiser attorney for the lead plaintiffs The board completed an internal investigation last month but has not publicized findings The litigation is in mediation and the board s findings and resulting actions may become known as it goes on Pichai in 2018 said Google made mistakes in some cases and introduced new procedures aimed at creating equity and transparency in harassment investigations I am fully committed to making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society and yes here at Google too said Pichai who at the time was Google CEO and had not yet gained the additional title of Alphabet CEO The MeToo movement has forced major shake ups in management and harassment policy across corporate America Through blog posts congressional appearances and media interviews Drummond s presence was felt in nearly every public battle the company fought as it crippled traditional businesses in media and telecoms on its way to online dominance Drummond has described himself as a diversity advocate telling Fortune in 2017 that he pushed the company to do more on the issue He encouraged Google to publish data about the demographics of its workforce and in 2014 he marched into a companywide meeting and spoke alongside colleagues frustrated by police violence against young black men BIGGER ROLE When Google re organized under the Alphabet umbrella in 2015 Page elevated Drummond s role beyond managing the company s legal and regulatory problems to overseeing its investment funds and far off ventures Earlier in his tenure he beat a lawsuit lodged by insurer Geico that would have undermined the company s now massive search ads business He settled with Viacom a copyright infringement lawsuit that could have crushed YouTube on its way to becoming the top online video destination And he fended off five major book publishers to enable Google to make their copyrighted works searchable online Drummond tussled on behalf of Google with rival Microsoft Corp O MSFT for a decade on executive poaching anticompetitive conduct and patents with each company taking its share of licks As Google s lead dealmaker Drummond oversaw billions of dollars worth of acquisitions including of YouTube DoubleClick and Motorola NYSE MSI
Drummond for a time served as the public face of strong stands against governments around the world He has regularly advocated for freedoms of speech and in 2010 he called for trade sanctions on countries that censor the internet such as China and Turkey | 1/10/2020 |
MSFT | Stocks Nasdaq Hits Record Highs as Trump Holds off Military Action on Iran | Investing com The Nasdaq notched a record close Wednesday after President Donald Trump s remarks stoked hopes of an end to rising U S Iran tensions easing fears of direct military conflict in the Middle East
The S P 500 gained 0 48 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0 67 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0 56
A sigh of relief swept through the broader market as Trump opted to impose new economic sanctions on Iran rather than call for military action against the Islamic Republic
Iran appears to be standing down which is a good thing for all parties concerned Trump said in a speech following Iran s strikes on several U S military bases
The fact that we have this great military and equipment however does not mean we have to use it the president added
Rising hopes that both nations will seek to de escalate tensions reduced expectations of oil supply disruption in the Middle East sending oil prices plunging 5 and keeping energy stocks in red
Ahead of the speech oil prices were on the back foot following an unexpected build in weekly crude supplies
But the plunge in energy was more than offset by a rally in tech underpinned by gains in Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Apple NASDAQ AAPL amid bullish remarks from Wall Street
Morgan Stanley raised its target on Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT to 189 from 157 on expectations that the tech giant is set to deliver strong performance in the coming year
Wedbush meanwhile said robust iPhone 11 sales during the holiday season and strong AirPods performance should lead to clear upside in Apple s upcoming quarterly earnings report
Boeing NYSE BA however failed to join the broad based rally falling 1 after Cowen downgraded shares of the aircraft maker and concerns over its operational fleet continued after one of its jets was involved in a fatal crash in Iran | 1/8/2020 |
MSFT | White House proposes regulatory principles to govern AI use | By David Shepardson
LAS VEGAS Reuters The White House on Tuesday proposed regulatory principles to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence AI aimed at limiting authorities overreach and said it wants European officials to likewise avoid aggressive approaches
In a fact sheet the White House said federal agencies should conduct risk assessment and cost benefit analyses prior to any regulatory action on AI with a focus on establishing flexible frameworks rather than one size fits all regulation
The comments come at a time when companies are racing to integrate AI and deep machine learning into their businesses to remain competitive However the technology raises ethical concerns about control privacy cyber security and the future of work companies and experts have said
The Trump administration said agencies should promote trustworthy AI and must consider fairness non discrimination openness transparency safety and security
As an example the White House cited the Food and Drug Administration which is currently considering how to regulate the use of AI and machine learning technologies by medical device manufacturers
The White House said Europe and our allies should avoid heavy handed innovation killing models It added the best way to counter authoritarian uses of AI is to make sure America and our international partners remain the global hubs of innovation
Last year the European Commission s High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence issued a set of ethical guidelines and European Union leaders are considering regulatory action
THREAT
Some U S states have raised concerns about AI applications California s legislature in September passed a three year ban on state and local law enforcement using body cameras with facial recognition software the latest curb on technology that some say poses a threat to civil liberties Some U S cities have also voted to bar facial recognition technology by law enforcement
The White House s Michael Kratsios chief technology officer of the United States who will talk about the administration s AI strategy at the CES trade show in Las Vegas later this week in a statement said Tuesday s principles set the nation on a path of continued AI innovation and discovery
In February U S President Donald Trump signed an executive order for federal government agencies to dedicate more resources and investment to AI related research promotion and training
A 2018 study from consultancy PwC said 30 of jobs around the world are at risk of automation by the mid 2030s including 44 of workers with low education The study also found automation could boost global gross domestic product by 15 trillion by 2030
The White House held a meeting on AI in 2018 with over 30 major companies from a variety of industries including Ford Motor NYSE F Co Boeing NYSE BA Co Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT vowing not to stand in the way of the technology s development | 1/7/2020 |
MSFT | Japanese billionaire Maezawa in 9 million social experiment giveaway | By Sam Nussey
TOKYO Reuters Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa is giving away 9 million to his Twitter followers in what he says is a social experiment to see if the payment boosts their happiness
Maezawa will give 1 million yen 9 000 to 1 000 followers selected at random from those who retweeted a Jan 1 post with the impact of the money to be tracked through regular surveys
It s a serious social experiment said Maezawa on YouTube adding he hopes to attract interest from academics and economists
Maezawa who is to be the first private passenger to fly around the moon with Elon Musk s SpaceX is known for his high spending on art and sports cars but also has a predilection for musing on ideas like a world without money
He tied the giveaway to the idea of basic income or the theory of providing a periodic no strings attached payment to all citizens that has gained traction in some political circles and is backed by Democratic U S presidential candidate Andrew Yang
Basic means a regular minimum amount offering a sense of security what Maezawa is offering is totally different said Toshihiro Nagahama senior economist at Dai ichi Life Research Institute
Maezawa said that given that he has the money and free time to make the payments he felt the need to try and inspire greater debate over the merits of the theory in Japan
The idea of a universal basic income has gained support over fears technology such as artificial intelligence will wipe out large numbers of jobs but that concern is for now less pronounced in Japan with its tight labor market said Nagahama
Its the second larger giveaway by the entrepreneur who in November secured a 900 million payday through the sale of his online fashion business Zozo Inc T 3092 to SoftBank Group Corp T 9984
Maezawa who recently grabbed headlines after his split from actress girlfriend Ayame Goriki has gathered almost 7 million followers on Twitter with his mix of displays of conspicuous consumption and folksy pronouncements on the meaning of life
YouTube is the latest online outlet for the businessman with videos including a tour of his private jet a visit to the barber to dye his hair and updating his bank book after November s windfall
The debate over basic income comes as income inequality continues to grow in the United States where in recent years some of its wealthiest entrepreneurs from Microsoft O MSFT co founder Bill Gates to investor Warren Buffet have pledged to give away most of their wealth | 1/8/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft long term margins set up for strong 2020 Morgan Stanley | Morgan Stanley has boosted its target on Microsoft MSFT 1 1 and reiterated its Overweight rating pointing to margin potential vs concerns about product cycles and cloud revenues The company s likely to see expanding margins and durable double digit gross profit growth analyst Keith Weiss says Combined with buybacks and a dividend that means a sustainable total return in the mid to high teens a CAGR that s underpriced at current levels he writes The firm raised its target to 189 from 157 now implying 19 upside Sell side analysts are Very Bullish on Microsoft and Seeking Alpha authors are Bullish It has a Quant Rating of Very Bullish | 1/8/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft says North Korea linked hackers stole sensitive information | Reuters Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT said on Monday it has taken control of web domains which were used by a hacking group called Thallium to steal information Thallium is believed to be operating from North Korea Microsoft said in a blog post and the hackers targeted government employees think tanks university staff members and individuals working on nuclear proliferation issues among others Most of the targets were based in the United States as well as Japan and South Korea the company said https Thallium tricked victims through a technique known as spear phishing using credible looking emails that appear legitimate at first glance Microsoft said it now has control of 50 web domains used by the group to conduct its operations following a case filed against the hacking group in the U S District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and a subsequent court order
Thallium also used malware to compromise systems and steal data and is the fourth nation state group against which Microsoft has taken legal action the company said | 1/3/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft sues to block SynKloud cloud suit | Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT files a suit asking a Delaware court to decide its OneDrive cloud storage software doesn t infringe on a group of SynKloud patents
The complaint says SynKloud has launched a litigation campaign based on the patents targeting Microsoft competitors in the cloud storage space
In November SynKloud sued HP for including OneDrive in some of its products
Key quote from the complaint SynKloud intends to enforce its patent portfolio broadly and generically against the entire cloud storage industry and against Microsoft products specifically
Source Bloomberg | 1/3/2020 |
INTC | Nvidia Mellanox Technologies win EU approval for 6 8 billion deal | Reuters Semiconductor company Mellanox Technologies O MLNX has received approval from EU antitrust and Mexico for its proposed acquisition by chipmaker Nvidia O NVDA for 6 8 billion a regulatory filing showed on Thursday
Reuters had exclusively reported on Wednesday that both companies were set to win the EU regulatory antitrust approval for the deal
Nvidia known for its powerful gaming graphics chips is looking to boost its data center and artificial intelligence business via the takeover its biggest deal to better compete with rival Intel O INTC
U S authorities have already cleared the deal without conditions while approval is still pending in China where Mellanox has major customers such as Alibaba N BABA and Baidu O BIDU | 12/19/2019 |
INTC | Trump administration pressed Dutch hard to cancel China chip equipment sale sources | By Alexandra Alper Toby Sterling and Stephen Nellis WASHINGTON AMSTERDAM SAN FRANCISCO Reuters The Trump administration mounted an extensive campaign to block the sale of Dutch chip manufacturing technology to China with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lobbying the Netherlands government and White House officials sharing a classified intelligence report with the country s Prime Minister people familiar with the effort told Reuters The high level push which has not previously been reported demonstrates the importance the White House places on preventing China from getting hold of a machine required to make the world s fastest microprocessors It also shows the challenges facing the U S government s largely unilateral efforts to stem the flow of advanced technology to China The U S campaign began in 2018 after the Dutch government gave semiconductor equipment company ASML the global leader in a critical chip making process known as lithography a license to sell its most advanced machine to a Chinese customer two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters Over the following months U S officials examined whether they could block the sale outright and held at least four rounds of talks with Dutch officials three sources told Reuters The effort culminated in the White House on July 18 when Deputy National Security Advisor Charles Kupperman raised the issue with Dutch officials during the visit of Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte who was given an intelligence report on the potential repercussions of China acquiring ASML s technology according to a former U S government official familiar with the matter The pressure appears to have worked Shortly after the White House visit the Dutch government decided not to renew ASML s export license and the 150 million machine has not been shipped Ilse van Oevering a spokeswoman for Rutte s office declined comment saying the government cannot discuss individual licensing cases The White House declined to comment Kupperman did not reply to a request for comment The delayed shipment was first reported on Nov 6 by the Nikkei Asian Review but details of the U S pressure campaign have not previously been disclosed ASML said it is still awaiting approval of a new license request and declined further comment ASML has never publicly disclosed the identity of the Chinese customer but Nikkei and others have reported that it is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp SMIC China s biggest chip making specialist SMIC did not reply to a request for a comment SECURITY INTEREST The ASML machine uses extreme ultraviolet EUV light beams generated by lasers and focused by giant mirrors to lay out extraordinarily narrow circuits on slabs of silicon known as wafers That in turn makes it possible to create faster and more powerful microprocessors memory chips and other advanced components which are critical for consumer electronics and military applications alike Only a few companies including America s Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC South Korea s Samsung Electronics KS 005930 and Taiwan s TSMC are currently capable of manufacturing the most sophisticated chips But China has made catching up to those companies in chip making technology a key national priority and is investing tens of billions of dollars in the effort That drive has run head on into the Trump administration s efforts to block the flow of sensitive technology to China on national security grounds Companies selling U S made goods are now barred from shipping them to blacklisted Chinese firms including telecoms giant Huawei Technologies HWT UL and surveillance vendor Hikvision without a special license The U S government can also deny licenses to firms that want to sell goods made with U S technology to any Chinese company not just those on the export blacklist But blocking companies like ASML that manufacture overseas is much more difficult Under current regulations the U S can require a license for many high tech products shipped to China from other countries if U S made components make up more than 25 of the value The U S Department of Commerce conducted an audit of ASML s EUV machine two sources told Reuters but found it did not meet the 25 threshold according to one of the people The U S Department of Commerce is now considering lowering the 25 threshold in some cases Reuters reported in November With no way to block the sale directly the Trump administration pressed its Dutch ally to consider the security issues Lithography equipment falls under the purview of an international agreement known as the Wassenaar Arrangement which coordinates export restrictions of so called dual use technology that has commercial and military applications U S Department of Defense officials met their Dutch counterparts several times to discuss the security risks of the sale two sources told Reuters Meetings took place at the Netherlands embassy in Washington in late 2018 and January 2019 two separate sources said Pompeo urged Rutte himself to block the sale despite commercial pressures to let ASML proceed during a visit to the Netherlands last June three sources said With a market value of more than 110 billion euros ASML has grown to dominate the lithography market over the last two decades and is the pride of Dutch industry Our ask is that our allies and our partners and friends don t do anything that would endanger our shared security interest Pompeo told reporters in The Hague on June 3 He did not mention chip equipment specifically The U S Department of State did not reply to a request for comment Six weeks later during his visit to the White House Rutte was given a copy of the intelligence report Reuters could not determine whether U S President Donald Trump mentioned the ASML deal to Rutte during the White House meeting ASML s export license expired unused on June 30 2019 and no new license was granted in the following eight week period during which a renewal request would normally be considered according to a public database of licenses published by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs Netherlands Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Irene Gerritsen said the Dutch government has sovereign discretion to grant licenses of dual use technology and would not comment on specific cases
With or without the EUV license ASML expects its Chinese sales to increase in 2020 as it continues to ship earlier generation equipment | 1/6/2020 |
INTC | Qualcomm launches autonomous driving computer aiming to hit roads by 2023 | By Stephen Nellis Reuters Qualcomm Inc O QCOM on Monday announced a computing system for autonomous vehicles designed to handle everything from lane controls to full self driving that it aims to have on the road by 2023 The system dubbed Snapdragon Ride is the company s first foray into a full system to power self driving cars San Diego based Qualcomm known best as the world s biggest mobile phone chip supplier has been a major automotive supplier for more than a decade but primarily for the modem chips that connect vehicles to the internet and chips for the infotainment systems that power screens inside vehicles Qualcomm has spent years developing self driving technology near its headquarters in virtual silence while rivals such as Intel Corp O INTC and Nvidia Corp O NVDA jumped into the market spending billions on acquisitions supplying major automakers for autonomous driving Patrick Little the senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm s automotive business said the company is using the expertise it built in the mobile phone processor business developing powerful processors that consume little electricity and generate little heat Qualcomm s new computers can fit in one hand and do not need fans or liquid cooling systems to prevent them from overheating Lower power consumption will become important in electric vehicles in which computers will have to compete with the drive train for battery power Many of these cars have a supercomputer in the back It looks like your kid s gaming PC Little told Reuters in an interview Now imagine you re putting that in the trunk of an electric vehicle Now your range anxiety is just doubled Qualcomm has also broken the system into pieces of hardware and software that can be scaled up or down for various needs from automakers A smaller version of the computer can be used for simpler tasks like lane control or the computers can be chained together for full self driving Little said Qualcomm has used test vehicles in San Diego to develop its own set of self driving software algorithms if automakers want to use them but that it will be up to each one If they came to us with their own software stack or even somebody else s software stack we re happy to say we ll help you adapt it to Qualcomm s hardware he said
Qualcomm and General Motors Co N GM on Monday also said that the automaker has expanded its existing partnership with the chip suppler into high performance compute platforms Qualcomm previously provided chips for the company s dashboard electronics location tracking and driver assistance systems | 1/6/2020 |
INTC | Intel s Mobileye demos autonomous car equipped only with cameras no other sensors | By Jane Lanhee Lee
LAS VEGAS Reuters Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC on Monday released a video of its Mobileye F 0ME autonomous car navigating the streets of Jerusalem for about 20 minutes with the help of 12 on board cameras and unusually no other sensors
The development comes as chipmakers and machine vision system manufacturers compete to provide the brains and eyes of automated vehicles
Intel showed part of the unedited video at a news conference at tech show CES in Las Vegas The chipmaker s demo is notable as self driving car technology companies generally pair cameras with other sensors like radar or lidar to help the vehicle see its surroundings
The video showed the car navigating through four way intersections with no traffic lights and changing lanes to weave into traffic and avoid pedestrians
In the video Mobileye Intel s Israel based autonomous driving unit said its technology can create 3D models from 2D camera images to help an autonomous driving system better sense the environment It said the processing is done with two of its latest autonomous driving EyeQ5 chips
Mobileye also said it can merge the information from its camera only system with that from radar and lidar systems to use together on self driving cars | 1/6/2020 |
MSFT | Microsoft brings GTA V to Xbox Game Pass | Microsoft MSFT 0 7 has added Grand Theft Auto V to its Xbox Game Pass a non Microsoft title marking a key win That will bring one of the most popular games of all time to the company s 10 month videogame subscription service The addition includes Grand Theft Auto Online GTA V with the help of Online has paid big dividends for Take Two Interactive Software TTWO 0 2 since its 2013 release with more than 115M unit sales The six year old game was still among the top 10 best sellers as recently as August of this year landing at No 3 that month | 1/3/2020 |
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