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Luke Kawa

Nvidia slumps despite reassuring AI demand news from around the world

Nvidia’s business outlook is seemingly getting a boost from companies all over the world — but the stock is still retreating.

The chip designer bounced back from the worst one-day destruction of market value of a single company on Monday with a big gain on Tuesday, but is now down 2% in the premarket.

The dip comes after Dutch semi supplier ASML said its bookings were more than twice what Wall Street anticipated in the fourth quarter, and Japanese-based chip-testing equipment maker Advantest significantly upgraded its earnings outlook through March 2025. Nvidia has referred to Advantest’s US unit as one of its “industry leading suppliers.”

And DeepSeek AI isn’t the only Chinese entity to undercut the case for spending billions on Nvidia’s chips this week: Alibaba is also boasting of a best-in-class AI model.

Advantest CEO Douglas Lefever provided an indication that the AI boom may begin to lift more boats for broader semiconductor demand thanks to AI-enabled hardware (or its “edge” business), though perhaps not imminently. From the earnings call transcript (this appears to have been translated from Japanese, so it’s a little clunky):

As far as edge, we have seen some goodness in edge compute when it comes to some of the consumer electronics in the handsets. A lot of the handsets now are equipped with a lot of AI compute capabilities and so that is leading to some business upside. But its clear that most of our business is going into more infrastructure level AI.

If chipmakers are so eager to test chips and have more of the highest-power design systems, they must be pretty bullish about how much demand there’s going to be from the so-called hyperscalers, among others. But this optimism could be misplaced: reassurance from companies that are upstream from Nvidia is much less a vote of confidence than support from its downstream customers.

Thankfully, we’ve got Meta and Microsoft reporting after the close on Wednesday, which should shed some more light on this matter.

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SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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