David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Technology

    Tesla Shares Drop After Investor Day Without Any New Models

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    “I’d love to really show you what I mean and unveil the next-gen car, but you’re going to have to trust me on that until a later date,” Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s design chief, said at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. “We’ll always be delivering exciting, compelling and desirable vehicles, as we always have.”

    Tesla shares fell as much as 8.6% as of 8:40 a.m. Thursday in New York, before the start of regular trading. Anticipation of the event contributed to a surge in the stock that added more than $300 billion of market value in two months.

    Letdown
    Musk, 51, confirmed Tesla will build a new plant in Monterrey, Mexico, in what he said was probably the most significant announcement of the day. The chief executive officer said Tesla will make its next-gen vehicle there, and that the company will hold a grand opening and groundbreaking at an
    unspecified date.

    When asked when the carmaker will show a prototype and if he could share details about the size, content and performance of the vehicle, Musk responded that Tesla also will hold a “proper sort of product event” at some point, but didn’t say when.

    “We’re gonna go as fast as we can,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering. “We expect that to be a huge-volume product.”
     

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    First Solar Shares Surge to 14-Year High as Order Backlog Swells

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    The surging demand comes as the company is poised to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate bill signed last year by President Joe Biden that subsidizes domestic manufacturing. Even before the bill passed, First Solar saw strong demand for its modules. It has since announced a new factory in Alabama and Chief Executive Officer Mark Widmar indicated on an earnings call that further expansion is possible.

    The years-long backlog of orders caught the attention of analysts and investors. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Brian Lee boosted the price target on the stock to a Wall Street-high of $260 from $231 on Wednesday, noting the company is “booking well into the 2nd half of the decade at this point.”

    The US is expected to significantly boost its reliance on solar power in its push to slash carbon emissions. First Solar, the country’s biggest panel maker, has focused on dominating that market.

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    Flying recovery proves a tailwind for new Rolls-Royce boss's turnaround

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    "There is good performance improvement opportunity in this business in all the divisions, especially in civil aerospace and power systems," he told reporters. "And that is ongoing and then strategic review will create the clarity."

    He said he would focus on reducing its debt, which stood at 3.25 billion pounds at year-end, to obtain an investment grade, before resuming payouts to shareholders.

    Rolls, which also has defence and power systems divisions, posted operating profit of 652 million pounds for 2022, up 57% and beating an analyst forecast of 478 million pounds.

    It guided to underlying operating profit of 0.8-1.0 billion pounds and free cash flow of 0.6-0.8 billion pounds this year, based on a forecast for its engines to fly 80-90% of 2019's level.

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    Chinese Markets Roar Back on Upbeat Data Ahead of Congress

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    China’s manufacturing activity recorded its highest monthly improvement in more than a decade in February, while services also showed stronger-than-expected performance. With home sales rising for the first time in 20 months, the string of positive data helped allay concerns over the nation’s recovery from the damage induced by its Covid Zero policy.  

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    Applied Materials to Challenge ASML's Grip With New Machines

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    The company’s Centura Sculpta machine — a so-called pattern shaping system — lets customers reduce the amount of time they spend on lithography, the process of using light to burn lines into silicon. Lithography has become increasingly complex and expensive, and the new approach will help streamline chip production while reducing waste, Applied Materials said Tuesday.

    The move threatens to disrupt a lithography market dominated by ASML’s machines. Though Applied Materials isn’t challenging that company directly, it’s attempting to rethink the way the industry manufactures chips — the tiny electronic components that are built by depositing materials on disks of
    silicon.

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    Why Unprofitable Stocks Make The IBD 50; Here's How 4 Earn Their Place

    This article from Investor’s Business Daily may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    Outstanding sales growth is a sign of a market leader, even in cases when companies are unprofitable. Other factors contribute to the selection criteria for IBD 50, including past stock performance. For example, many stocks with a weak bottom-line outlook have high Relative Strength Ratings.

    Monday.com posted two profitable quarters of EPS in Q3 and Q4 after a string of losses. The profitable quarters helped the company post a positive 2022 with 73 cent EPS, but analysts are expecting losses of 36 cents in 2023 and 9 cents in 2024.

    "We finished FY '22 with strong revenue growth, improving efficiency and positive free cash flow for the second consecutive year," said co-CEO Roy Mann. "Despite macro uncertainties, we believe we are well positioned for the road ahead."

    The Israel-based software applications and workload management firm gave a full-year 2023 revenue range of $688 million to $693 million, exceeding analysts expectations.

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    AI Mania Propels Nvidia Value by Nearly $220 Billion This Year

    Nvidia dominates the market for graphics chips designed for complex computing tasks needed to power AI applications, leading analysts and investors to believe that the company will benefit as more people use ChatGPT-like applications. 

    “When you have ‘the next big thing’ in tech, it’s natural for investors to scramble to find ways to play the theme,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. “Nvidia’s involvement in the AI space now puts it directly under the spotlight, which means there could be strong demand for the shares.” 

    The expectation is driven by the hope that chatbot operators will need more computing power as they respond to the millions of queries received across the web, from deadline-driven students to struggling songwriters. 

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    Apple Makes Headway in Secret Bid to Track Glucose on Watch

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    The goal of this secret endeavor — dubbed E5 — is to measure how much glucose is in someone’s body without needing to prick the skin for blood. After hitting major milestones recently, the company now believes it could eventually bring glucose monitoring to market, according to people familiar with the effort.

    If perfected, such a breakthrough would be a boon to diabetics and help cement Apple as a powerhouse in health care. Adding the monitoring system to the Apple Watch, the ultimate goal, would also make that device an essential item for millions of diabetics around the world.

    There’s still years of work ahead, but the move could upend a multibillion-dollar industry. Roughly 1 in 10 Americans have diabetes, and they typically rely on a device that pokes the skin for a blood sample. There are also patches from Dexcom Inc. and Abbott Laboratories that are inserted into the skin but need to be replaced about every two weeks.

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    Apple Ad Rules Send Internet Economy Into Prolonged 'Recession'

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    A factor that’s gotten less attention, though, is something a bit more arcane, something more specific to the business models that have both enriched some of the world’s biggest tech companies and shaped the way many of us experience the internet. That factor is the iPhone.

    In 2021, Apple rolled out what it called App Tracking Transparency. Henceforth, iPhone users had to opt in to certain forms of digital tracking, in particular targeting that involves the sharing of information between different apps.

    Social media companies rely heavily on that technique to serve up the targeted ads that are their profit engines. The data they collect can form an ever-more-detailed mosaic of a user and, most importantly, a better sense of what kind of person responds to which types of ads.

    Apple presented its anti-tracking policy as a way for people to take control of their information, at a time when lawmakers around the world are championing a similar cause. Ads are intrusive and annoying, and being closely tracked on the internet is creepy. If you are a political dissident or a woman researching abortion in a place where the procedure is illegal, it is terrifying.

    At the time, however, Facebook’s parent company Meta saw the change as a serious threat. Social media executives feared that lots of iPhone users would opt out of this kind of app tracking when given the option. Almost two years on, they seem to have been right. Meta estimated that the change cost it $10 billion in 2022, or 9% of its total revenue.

    Eric Michael Seufert, an analyst at Mobile Dev Memo, went so far as to call it “the App Tracking Transparency recession.” Seufert argued that the tech companies having the hardest time right now are those most directly affected by Apple’s policy. As he points out, revenue at YouTube, Google's video arm that relies heavily on third-party ad tracking, has lagged the company's search revenue, which is far less reliant on this type of tracking.

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    George Soros on Climate Change, China, Elections

    This video of George Soros’s speech at the Munich security conference over the weekend may be of interest.