Markets

Although the Chinese calendar technically ushered in the year of the dragon, it’s a bull that investors have been channeling in 2024. Indeed, stock markets around the world have continued their relentless upward march this year, seeing record highs for Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, India’s Nifty 50, Europe’s closely-watched STOXX 600, and, of course, America’s flagship S&P 500, which is up 10% this year.

Win some, lose some

Much has been written about how the “Magnificent 7” have driven the market almost on their own this year, but it hasn’t just been big tech driving markets higher. Indeed, more than 70% of the stocks in the S&P 500 have made gains in 2024, with just 134 of the index’s constituents losing ground.

None more so than Tesla. Indeed, at the time of writing, TSLA is the worst performing stock in the entire index, having lost 26% of its value so far this year, shedding some $240 billion in market cap, as the wider EV market slows down. That’s just marginally ahead of Boeing, which has been grounded after multiple mechanical failures and a mounting PR crisis that saw the CEO announce his departure last week.

At the green end of the performance spectrum are the companies benefiting from the ongoing AI hype — a trend that’s turned Nvidia into a market colossus, worth some $2.26 trillion after rising 82% this year. Ironically, Nvidia isn’t actually the best performing AI-exposed stock in the S&P 500; that honor falls to Super Micro Computer Inc, which has notched off-the-charts growth (literally, since we didn’t have space to plot it above) having gained more than 250% this year.

Other winners: Disney enjoyed an uplift as it turned the tide on streaming service losses and CEO Bob Iger gained support in the ongoing showdown with activist investor Nelson Peltz. Uber, after hitching a ride to its first-ever profitable year, has also seen its shares zoom up by 25%.

Other losers: Paramount Global and Warner Bros shares have sunk 20% and 24%, respectively, after the potential merger between the two was scrapped at the end of February.

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Super Micro rises as the company begins shipments of Nvidia Blackwell chips

Super Micro Computer jumped over 6% in premarket trading on Friday after the company announced it has started shipping “Plug-and-Play (PnP)-ready” racks powered by Nvidia’s new Blackwell Ultra chips, giving data center customers a ready-made option to scale up their AI infrastructure.

The rollout enables what SMCI calls “turn-key day-one” operations, with the entire racks preassembled and tested to work out of the box.

“Data center customers face many AI infrastructure challenges: complex network topology and cabling, power delivery, and thermal management,” CEO Charles Liang said. “Through Supermicro Data Center Building Block Solutions with our expertise in on-site deployment, we enable turn-key delivery of the highest-performance AI platform — critical for customers seeking to invest in cutting-edge technology.”

The company says the new systems performance jumps up to 7.5x over Nvidias previous-generation chips. Its also designed to run more efficiently, using less power and water while taking up less floor space, cutting the overall operating costs by 20%, according to the statement.

The launch comes after a rocky August, when SMCI’s shares plunged on weaker-than-expected quarterly results and management trimmed its annual revenue target.

Investors in Super Micro have endured much volatility this year, as the company has failed to deliver on multiple occasions. Even so, the shares are up nearly 50% year to date.

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Warner Bros. Discovery jumps after Wells Fargo ups price target on dealmaking buzz

Warner Bros. Discovery shares popped 7% Tuesday after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the media giant to $14 from $13 while keeping an equal-weight rating.

The bank’s optimism stemmed largely from the media giant’s potential for dealmaking. In June, WBD announced that it would split its operations into two companies, with the Streaming & Studios division (home to Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios, HBO, and Max) standing alone from the networks side (CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery).

That separation could make the Streaming & Studios unit more attractive to buyers, the analysts said. They valued the segment at about $65 billion, which could translate to a takeover price north of $21 a share. Potential suitors range from Amazon and Apple to Sony and Comcast, though analysts flagged Netflix as the “most compelling” option despite its limited acquisition track record:

“While NFLX has historically not been acquisitive, [streaming and studios’] $12bn in annual content spend + library + 100+ acre studio lot offers a lot. It kickstarts a theatrical IP strategy, quickly scales video games and most importantly provides premium content to members.”

At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference this week, CEO David Zaslav also highlighted growing traction at HBO Max and hinted at future crackdowns on password sharing.

WBD shares are up 26% year to date, and up more than 93% over the past 12 months.

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Duolingo up on bullish note, hopes for a user rebound

Duolingo rose by the most in nearly a month after an analyst note painted a more bullish picture of the gamified language-learning company despite a dearth of news otherwise.

A quick check-in with analysts covering the stock on Wall Street found most of them otherwise flummoxed on the reason behind the uptick Thursday.

Some, however, suggested the rise may reflect optimism that the company has been able to reverse a monthslong downturn in daily active user metrics — a slump that set in after a social media backlash to a somewhat artless LinkedIn post from the company about its AI first strategy.

The bullish analyst note, published Thursday by Citizens JMP, suggested Duolingo could be a big beneficiary from a change to Apple’s rules governing its App Store driven by a ruling on a federal antitrust case against the company. The analysts wrote:

Given “Apple’s recent changes to U.S. App Store rules that allow developers to steer payments to the web where fees are similar to typical credit card fees rather than Apple’s 30% fee for in-app purchases and 30% fee on subscriptions for the first year and 15% thereafter, we expect mobile app companies including Duolingo, Life360, and Grindr Inc. to unlock meaningful cost benefits.”

At any rate, the next big event on the company’s calendar is its Duocon 2025 conference on Tuesday, where analysts are hoping to hear more hard information on all of the above topics.

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