Nvidia’s Stock Falls Further – but Analysts See a Future That’s Brighter Than Ever

Nvidia’s talk of huge market opportunities in autonomous driving and robotics is ‘potentially comforting for investors thinking about what might come next for the company’ Nvidia Corp. shares have turned lower Wednesday, adding to sharp losses from a day earlier, even as analysts urged investors to think big picture. While Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s Monday night keynote didn’t impress Wall Street, executives got another crack at things with a Tuesday afternoon analyst meeting, which touched on everything from attempts to get more on the specifics of January-quarter guidance to management’s perceived opportunity in areas like robotics and autonomous driving. Nvidia’s stock (NVDA) is down about 1% in Wednesday’s session after it had been up as much as 2.7% earlier in the trading day. It lost 6.2% on Tuesday. See also: Quantum-computing stocks sink as Nvidia CEO delivers a reality check Analysts saw some upbeat signs, particularly when taking a wide […]

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Netflix Q4 To Show Advertising, Live Sports Strength, Analyst Says: ‘Multiyear Narrative Of Compounded Growth’

Live sports, ad-supported plans and pricing strategies are among the items highlighted by a Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) analyst ahead of the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which will include results from NFL games, a big boxing match and the premiere of a second season of “Squid Game.” The Netflix Analyst: Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan reiterated a Neutral rating on Netflix and raised the price target from $750 to $850. The Analyst Takeaways: Netflix outperforming the S&P 500 over the past 12 months comes with several key themes, Sheridan said in a new investor note. The analyst highlighted a competitive moat, a push into live sports and partnerships in advertising as key themes. “Initial forays into live sports/entertainment are the beginning of a multi-year narrative of compounded growth that will build in momentum,” Sheridan said. Sheridan said the key investor debates going forward are the pace of price increases, management commentary on live sports and the overall

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Goldman Sachs Flags Weak Q4 Guidance For Exxon Amid Weak Upstream And Chemical Results

Goldman Sachs analyst Neil Mehta expressed views on Exxon Mobil Corporation’s (NYSE:XOM) trading update reported yesterday. The oil giant anticipates changes in oil prices to reduce fourth-quarter upstream earnings Q/Q by $(0.9) billion to $(0.5) billion. Conversely, changes in gas prices are expected to impact its upstream results by between $0.0 billion and $0.4 billion. On the other hand, Exxon Mobil projects that variations in industry margins will impact energy products earnings by $(0.7) billion – $(0.3) billion, specialty products earnings by $(0.1) billion – $0.1 billion, and chemical products earnings by $(0.5) billion – $(0.3) billion. The analyst writes that implied EPS at the midpoint was ~$1.50, below their estimate of $1.80 and FactSet consensus of $1.76. The difference is mainly due to weaker-than-expected results in the Upstream, Downstream, and Chemicals segments, adds the analyst. Mehta writes that implied Upstream earnings were ~$5.7 billion at the mid-point, below their estimate of

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AI PCs and Chips Are a Highlight at CES. Demand Concerns Remain.

Artificial intelligence personal computers have made a splash at the CES conference this week, but concerns regarding demand haven’t gone away. Investors and consumers have been tuned into the annual CES trade show this week as tech companies from around the world visit Las Vegas to unveil their newest product and software updates. One highlight from the week has been the display of new gen-AI PCs and chips. Nvidia unveiled Project Digits, a $3,000 AI personal supercomputer. Dell Technologies announced that it has redesigned its entire PC portfolio to make it more simple for the consumer as it develops new AI hardware. Meanwhile, Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices both showed off new AI PC processors. But while all of these new announcements are being made, there is still the question as to what the PC market will look like in the year to come. On one end, there’s excitement about

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Costco’s Holiday-season Sales Jump Was Not Just About Food, Analyst Says

E-commerce sales were up 34% thanks to timing of Thanksgiving, while online sales mostly came from nonfood segments, analyst notes Costco Wholesale Corp. on Wednesday reported a 9.9% year-over-year sales gain through the final stretch of the holiday-shopping season, marked by a big jump in online sales due to the later timing of this year’s big discount days for the period. The membership warehouse chain (COST) said that for the five weeks ending on Jan. 5 – the time frame it defined as the retail month of December – it had sales of $27.52 billion. That was up from $25.03 billion during the same period last year. Same-store sales were up 7.4% over the December period. E-commerce sales were up 34.4%, helped in part by Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday occurring a week later than usual this year. The company said online sales were “positively impacted by an estimated

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Bank of America Bond Losses Could Top $100 Billion Due to Rising Rates

Andrew Bary A sharp rise in rates since the end of the third quarter widened losses on bank securities portfolio and could become an investor issue again when banks start reporting their fourth-quarter results in the next week. Bank of America has the largest unrealized losses in the banking industry and could be a focus of investor attention. Barron’s estimates that Bank of America’s paper losses on a portfolio of $568 billion of bonds, mostly U.S. agency mortgage securities, could widen to $111 billion or more, compared with $86 billion at the end of September. Industrywide, total unrealized losses could top $500 billion, up from $364 billion at the end of the third quarter. These losses involve all banks insured by the FDIC. The total potential losses would still be narrower than the nearly $700 billion at banks at the end of the third quarter of 2022. Why the wider

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Dividends Will Keep Growing in 2025. Where to Find Them.

By Lawrence C. Strauss An important question for the market in 2025 is whether strong performance will broaden beyond the Magnificent Seven and other large-cap growth names that have dominated in recent years. But when it comes to dividends, this year is shaping up as one with healthy mid-single-digit growth across much of the market. “From a macro perspective, the main driver of dividends historically is earnings growth,” says Ben Snider, senior strategist on the U.S. portfolio strategy macro team at Goldman Sachs. “Earnings growth was good last year, and we think it’ll be even better in 2025.” Goldman is forecasting an 11% bump in S&P 500 earnings per share this year, compared with an estimated 8% in 2024. That, in turn, will lead to a 7% boost in dividends this year versus 6% in 2024, Goldman expects. Ohsung Kwon, a U.S. equity strategist at BofA Securities, has a more

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This Analyst Likes Software for 2025 — With 1 Notable Exception

Software stocks finished 2024 with a bang, and a Deutsche Bank analyst sees that trend continuing for the sector, minus Adobe. Stocks including Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Palantir Technologies saw strong returns last year as investors bought up shares of software companies with exposure to generative artificial intelligence. Enterprises are spending big to improve productivity, giving Wall Street optimism on the space. The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF rose 20.80% in 2024. Deutsche Bank’s Brad Zelnick believes this trend will continue in the new year. “Our conversations with CIOs, industry constituents, and analysis of third-party data indicate the spending environment for software will improve in 2025 vs 2024,” Zelnick wrote in a research note Wednesday. Zelnick added that monetization of gen-AI is still in its early days, but an “AI halo effect” will help drive revenue dollars. Essentially, the analyst believes excitement over AI software could help bring in new customers,

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Financial Advisors, Get Ready for AI Agents

In late November, a start-up called “/dev/agents” captured headlines with its $56 million seed funding round at a $500 valuation. Not bad for a company without a commercial product. It’s easy to see why the buzz was electric: the founding team boasts alumni from Google, Stripe, and Meta Platforms. The company is building an operating system for AI agents. These agents are poised to redefine how we interact with software. The idea is that they run in the background, acting autonomously based on user-provided guidelines and with minimal human oversight. AI agents have become a hot pursuit of tech giants. At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella sang their praises, while Salesforce rolled out Agentforce, its take on this transformative technology. Not to be outdone, ServiceNow, Workday, and Oracle have joined the race with their own AI agent offerings. “The rapid adoption of AI agents stems from their transformative impact

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Don’t Punish Google for Being Good at What It Does

About the author: Jay Ezrielev is the founder of the economic consulting firm Elevecon and in 2018-2020 was an economic advisor to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. He holds a doctorate in economics from New York University. The U.S. Department of Justice recently scored a victory in its war against big tech. The agency is using the opportunity to push a radical policy agenda that is likely to harm consumers and reduce economic growth. Courts should reject these harmful policies and save consumers from the very agencies that are meant to be protecting them. The D.C. District Court found in August that Alphabet subsidiary Google violated antitrust law by entering exclusive distribution agreements that made Google’s search engine the default option. The DOJ and state plaintiffs have now proposed a remedy to undo the effects of these agreements. In addition to forbidding these agreements, the proposed remedy forces

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Apple, Indonesia in Talks Over Investment to Lift iPhone 16 Sales Ban

Apple (AAPL) executives held talks with Indonesia’s industry minister to discuss a potential investment required to lift the country’s ban on iPhone 16 sales, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing the minster, Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. The minister met Apple’s vice president of global government affairs, Nick Ammann, and investment negotiations are underway, the report said. Another Indonesian cabinet minister previously said Apple proposed a $1 billion investment to lift the sales ban, but Kartasasmita deemed it “not sufficient,” while Ammann called the talks “great discussion” but gave no details, the report said. Indonesia banned iPhone 16 sales last year for lacking 40% locally made components, Reuters said, and Apple currently has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia.

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