Markets
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Luke Kawa

Nvidia tumbles as China pushes toward an AI boom without the US juggernaut

What does an AI boom look like without Nvidia at its epicenter?

More and more, it seems that China is willing to test out those uncharted waters.

Shares of the $4 trillion chip designer are down more than 3% in early trading after The Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba is developing a chip for AI inference tasks manufactured domestically, the latest in a series of signs that the country is looking to wean itself off of any dependence on Nvidia and US technology to develop its AI capabilities.

The Chinese AI market is of no small import to Nvidia. On the conference call following earnings this week, CEO Jensen Huang called it a $50 billion opportunity that he expects to grow at 50% per year.

But China has reportedly told its leading tech companies to forgo purchases of Nvidia’s H20 chips, citing data security concerns. These allegations regarding data security have been denied by Nvidia, and appear to reflect China’s desire to avoid having its AI development be beholden to the whims of US policymakers.

Nvidia had been effectively locked out of China’s AI market since mid-April, when export curbs were enacted, and didn’t receive licenses to ship H20 processors to the world’s second-largest economy until August. The chip designer reportedly halted production of these chips recently, which suggests that China’s directive to its tech giants has some teeth.

Without access to the most advanced technology, China will have to effectively make up for what it lacks in ability with volume.

This news also comes as other, smaller Chinese chipmakers begin to capture more attention from domestic investors. Cambricon, for instance, soared 15% to a record high earlier this week after reporting surging sales growth. Its share price more than doubled in a span of less than three weeks. Per the Financial Times, Chinese officials have told their biggest domestic chipmaker, SMIC, to devote some more capacity to Cambricon rather than give all the availability to Huawei Technologies, which is currently the country’s most advanced AI chip developer.

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Luke Kawa
2h
War has pushed global markets into the danger zone

Correlations within the US stock market and between asset classes are rising.

Screaming Man
markets
Max Knoblauch

Versant climbs in its first quarter after spin-off, announces dividend and $1 billion stock buyback

Versant Media, the owner of cable TV assets including CNBC, MS Now, and Golf Channel, reported its first earnings since spinning off from Comcast earlier this year. The stock climbed 3% after markets opened.

Investors appear to like Versant’s $1 billion stock buyback plan and its newly announced quarterly dividend of $0.375 per share.

Versant reported Q4 revenue of $1.55 billion, shy of the $1.56 billion expected by analysts polled by FactSet. The company posted earnings of $0.72 per share in the quarter, below estimates of $0.96 per share.

MS Now, formerly MSNBC, was the most watched news channel on election night in November, Versant said. The network will launch a direct-to-consumer platform later this year.

markets
Luke Kawa

Energy price spike on Mideast war has traders betting on no Fed cuts through June

A war in the Middle East, and the resultant upward pressure on oil prices, has caused traders to reverse bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in the first half of this year.

The prediction market-implied odds of a rate cut in June are less than 45% on Tuesday morning. Last week, the odds of a rate cut in June were around 60%. This comes as US national average gasoline prices rose 3.7% on Monday, their biggest one-day jump since 2005, according to data from the American Automobile Association.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

In the short term, higher energy prices put upward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on economic activity. Higher gasoline prices reduce households’ ability to spend more on other discretionary goods and services.

Normally, Fed officials would want to “look through” the impact of higher energy prices as a temporary source of upward pressure on inflation that is not indicative of the underlying trend. That’s why energy (and food) prices are stripped out of core inflation. However, this time might be different:

  • Inflation has run above the Federal Reserve’s target for a prolonged period.

  • The central bank is a little scarred by the un-transitory and severe postpandemic inflation (which was meaningfully accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).

  • Monetary policymakers were already signaling that the stabilization in jobs data and previous cuts, which brought their policy rate closer to a neutral setting, meant the bar for additional easing was higher.

“I think the Fed will be reluctant to elevate growth over inflation risks right now,” wrote Neil Dutta, head of US economics at Renaissance Macro Research. “Cuts have been a close-call as it is; thus, it’s tough to look through inflation when you are coming off a period of high inflation.”

markets
Matt Phillips

Dave Inc. reports better-than-expected Q4, snags price target hikes

Small-cap neobank Dave Inc. got an initial pop before paring those gains shortly after market open and falling into the red. It reported better-than-expected Q4 adjusted numbers yesterday after the bell and then collected a few price target hikes from analysts at Canaccord Genuity, Keefe Bruyette & Woods, and B. Riley Securities, but the shares were unable to hold on to the early enthusiasm.

The stock has had a pretty stupendous run, rising 937% in 2024 and 155% last year. Through yesterday’s close, 2026 hasn’t been as much fun, with the shares down 10%.

It does seem like the business has been turning toward steadier profitability, with GAAP net income hitting a quarterly record of $92 million in Q3 and following that up in Q4 with $66 million, up more than 290% from the same quarter last year.

Dave Inc. (DAVE) Surpasses Q4 Earnings Estimates

Dave Inc. (DAVE) Surpasses Q4 Earnings Estimates

The stock has had a pretty stupendous run, rising 937% in 2024 and 155% last year. Through yesterday’s close, 2026 hasn’t been as much fun, with the shares down 10%.

It does seem like the business has been turning toward steadier profitability, with GAAP net income hitting a quarterly record of $92 million in Q3 and following that up in Q4 with $66 million, up more than 290% from the same quarter last year.

markets
Max Knoblauch

AutoZone dips on weaker-than-expected Q2 sales growth

AutoZone reported results for its fiscal second quarter, ended February 14, before markets opened Tuesday. Its shares were down 4% in premarket trading.

AutoZone posted earnings of $27.63 per share, beating Wall Street estimates of $27.15 per share, but the company booked only $4.27 billion in revenue in the quarter, shy of the $4.31 billion consensus estimate from analysts polled by FactSet.

Domestic same-store growth of 3.4% underwhelmed expectations of 4.9%, with CEO Phil Daniele pointing to January and February winter storms as a disrupting factor.

The auto parts retailer said it plans to open between 350 and 360 stores globally in the full fiscal year, ahead of the 304 expected by Wall Street.

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