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Luke Kawa

“This is a huge win for tech stocks”: Ives on US relaxing AI chip sales to China

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are leading a massive rally in chip stocks this morning after indicating that they’re able to start selling AI chips that had been under export restrictions to China once again.

As of 8:30 a.m. ET, all of the top 18 performers in the Nasdaq 100 outside of two — Trade Desk, which is surging on news it’s being added to the S&P 500, and Temu parent PDD — are semiconductor or semiconductor-adjacent stocks.

That’s just the way it should be, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who called Nvidia’s renewed ability to access the Chinese data center market the end to “a game of high stakes poker between Nvidia and the Trump administration” that CEO Jensen Huang won.

“We would expect some positive language from the Chinese government and President Xi later today... with key tariff/trade deal negotiations on the horizon,” he wrote. “The AI Revolution is just hitting its next stage of growth and now Nvidia gets the key China market back which is roughly 15% of total revenues but could go up significantly over the coming years. This is a huge win for tech stocks.”

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American Eagle posts stronger-than-expected Q4 earnings and revenue

If American Eagle has seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Sydney Sweeney.

The jeans seller posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, ahead of the $0.71 expected by analysts polled by FactSet. It booked $1.76 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, versus the $1.74 billion consensus.

Shares initially climbed more than 5% after-hours before paring gains to about 2%.

“Compelling new product collections, supported by fresh marketing campaigns, led to higher demand trends in the quarter,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein.

American Eagle said it’s expecting same-store sales to grow by high single digits in the first quarter.

Marketing controversy has proved to be a powerful mover of denim for AE. In its third-quarter earnings call in December, AE said its partnership with Sydney Sweeney — together with a Travis Kelce partnership — had garnered more than 44 billion impressions. The retailer hit meme stock status last July when it initially launched its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign.

As of Wednesday’s close, American Eagle shares had climbed 120% since the Sweeney ad first landed.

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Investors are itching to buy the dip in memory stocks

The intense drubbing in South Korean stocks, with the benchmark Korean index (KOSPI) falling nearly 20% in its first two trading days of the week following a Monday holiday, represented a serious threat to the hottest AI trade: memory stocks.

South Korea’s market is dominated by two high-bandwidth memory giants: SK Hynix and Samsung.

After Tuesday’s tumble, US investors seemingly said enough is enough: it’s a buy-the-dip opportunity.

US memory stocks like Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings are posting massive gains on the day. The advance comes amid positive commentary at a Morgan Stanley conference on demand for memory chips.

Even more interestingly, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF is up big today despite the KOSPI falling 12% overnight, its largest drop on record. The ETF’s outperformance of the South Korean equity gauge is the largest since 2008, as the global financial crisis raged.

The daily performance of these two can differ materially since they trade at different times and don’t track precisely the same things. US investors are making the bet that a potential break in this momentum trade and the potential for an unwind of retail leverage in South Korean markets be damned, big drops in memory stocks are meant to be bought.

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