5/10/24

RIP: Jim Simons, pioneering quant investor

In the late 1970s, Simons abandoned a promising career as an academic mathematician to trade currencies, and built Renaissance Technologies into one of the most profitable investment shops of all time. Renaissance’s flagship Medallion fund — open only to Renaissance employees — averaged annual returns, after fees, of nearly 40% from 1988 to 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Gregory Zuckerman, who wrote a book about Simons entitled “The Man Who Solved the Market.”

In 1994, he and his wife founded the Simons Foundation, which is one of the largest charitable organizations in the US, and funds research in mathematics and science.

Simons Foundation Co-Founder, Mathematician and Investor Jim Simons Dies at 86

In 1994, he and his wife founded the Simons Foundation, which is one of the largest charitable organizations in the US, and funds research in mathematics and science.

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Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

12h

Megacap tech and the AI trade power US stocks to fresh records

The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.8%, and the Russell 2000 advanced 0.3% on Monday.

Matt Phillips

14h

Analysts on hard drives: “Supply remains tight”

Bank of America analysts bumped up price targets for hard disk drive (HDD) industry leaders — and S&P 500 top stocks — Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital as surging AI data center demand for these low-cost, long-term data storage devices continues to ramp up. They wrote:

“We raise our calendar year hard disk drive exabyte shipment forecast to 1,602 exabytes (+28% y/y) from 1,575 exabytes (+26% y/y) and see room for further upside as demand continues to outpace supply. Despite double digit percentage increases in total capacity... from STX & WDC so far during C25, HDD industry supply remains tight.”

BofA boosted its price target for Seagate from $170 a share to $215, slightly above where the stock is trading on Monday. The analysts also increased their stock price target on Western Digital from $100 to $123, implying a roughly 20% premium to where its share were trading Monday afternoon shortly before 2 p.m. ET.

Besides being an influential market driver this year, demand for hard disk data storage also reflects the vast amounts of data that the boom in AI is expected to generate. (A single exabyte is the equivalent of 1 billion gigabytes.)

As a result, hard drive makers like Seagate and Western are focusing on the next generation of high-capacity data storage gizmos that pack more data bits. These devices are also more profitable than traditional disk drives, which has helped to boost the profitability of the industry, BofA analysts said.

“As HDD demand continues to outpace supply, STX & WDC have seen profitability metrics hit all-time highs,” they wrote.

Those profitability metrics could help explain why the stocks have suddenly caught the fancy of traders.

“We estimate that STX & WDC can get above 42-43% corp gross margin levels exiting [calendar year 2028],” they wrote. “But if pricing is stronger than expected or if manufacturing efficiencies lower COGS, we believe margins could go even higher. Key risks include pause in hyperscaler capex (low probability) and tariffs.”

Max Knoblauch

15h

Alaska Air declines as it warns its profit will be dinged by fuel costs, weather, and air traffic control problems

Seattle-based Alaska Air is trading lower Monday afternoon after the airline warned investors that its third-quarter profits will likely come in on the low end of its prior outlook.

When Alaska Air reported its second-quarter results in July, the airline said it expected third-quarter earnings to land between $1 and $1.40 per share. As of early Monday, analysts polled by FactSet estimated $1.35.

A host of issues are behind the company’s expectations of a dent to earnings. ALK said it’s projecting fuel costs to climb to between $2.50 and $2.55 per gallon, up from its previous estimate of $2.45, due to West Coast refinery disruptions. Weather and air traffic control issues “led to increased costs from overtime, premium pay and passenger compensation,” Alaska said.

With Monday afternoon’s move, ALK shares are down about 8% year to date.

Matt Phillips

16h

Intel cuts expense forecast, sees best gain in weeks

Intel shares jumped after the partially nationalized US chip giant snipped its forecast for operating expenses this year to $16.8 billion from $17 billion after finalizing the divestiture of 51% of its stake in its Altera programmable chip unit to private equity firm Silver Lake.

Shortly after 12 p.m. ET the stock was up 4%, Intel’s best gain since August 22, when the Trump administration announced the extraordinary step of having the federal government take a 10% ownership stake in the private chip company.

Intel trims full-year expense outlook following Altera stake sale

OpenAI doesn’t have the cash to pay Oracle $300 billion — raising it will test the very limits of private markets

The ChatGPT maker plans to burn though $115 billion by 2029. No company in history has ever lit that much money on fire intentionally, let alone tried funding such a splurge through private markets alone.

David Crowther17h

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