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Luke Kawa7/15/25

“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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Qualcomm spikes despite poor forecast, citing progress with “leading hyperscaler” and an imminent return to growth in China

Qualcomm, a chip company seemingly left behind in AI, is trying to lean in more to the boom.

A crowd of visitors at the Qualcomm ( Qualcomm is an...

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Max Knoblauch8h

Ford raises its full-year guidance, receives $1.3 billion tariff refund

Ford reported its first-quarter results after markets closed on Wednesday. The automaker’s shares climbed roughly 7% in after-hours trading on the news.

For Q1, Ford reported:

Adjusted earnings of $0.66 per share, compared to the $0.18 per share expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet. The figure includes Ford’s tariff reimbursement.
$43.25 in total revenue, vs. the $42.66 billion consensus forecast. Automotive revenue came in at $39.8 billion, compared to estimates of $38.9 billion.
A $1.3 billion tariff refund.

Ford boosted its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest and taxes to between $8.5 billion and $10.5 billion, up from between $8 billion and $10 billion.

Late last year, Ford announced it would take $19.5 billion in charges — one of the largest write-downs ever — relating mostly to its EV business. Of those charges, $7 billion will be spread across this year and next, the company said.

Earlier this month, Ford recorded an 8.8% drop in Q1 sales from the same period last year, a similar result to Detroit rival GM, which posted a 9.7% sales drop.

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Microsoft beats on revenue and earnings in Q3, but only meets expectations for cloud growth

Microsoft shares dipped after the company reported strong Q3 earnings postmarket Wednesday, posting sales of $82.9 billion for the quarter, beating FactSet analyst estimates of $81.4 billion. Earnings per share were $4.27, handily beating estimates of $4.05.

In a closely watched number, Microsoft’s Azure cloud business increased 40% year on year, just above the 39.7% estimated. The metric technically beat expectations, but may not be the beat investors were looking for.

Total capital expenditure for the quarter was $31.9 billion, up 49% year on year, above estimates of $27.5 billion and down from Q2’s $37.5 billion.

One thing investors were eager to find out: how is the company doing in its effort to fulfill the billions in backlogged commercial bookings? Last quarter, the company reported a staggering $625 billion in remaining performance obligations, and 45% of that was for just one customer — OpenAI.

For the third quarter, Microsoft reported a backlog of $627 billion, up 99% year on year. The company said the RPO increase was 26% — in line with “historical seasonality” — when excluding OpenAI.

Breaking down the results by the company’s business lines:

☁️ 🤖 Intelligent Cloud (Azure, server products): $34.7 billion in revenue, up 30% year on year.
📝 📊 Productivity and Business Processes (Microsoft 365, LinkedIn, Dynamics): $35 billion in revenue, up 17% year on year.
💻 🎮 More Personal Computing (Windows, Xbox, Bing): $13.2 billion in revenue, down 1% year on year.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said in the earnings release:

“We delivered results that exceeded expectations across revenue, operating income, and earnings per share, reflecting strong execution and growing demand for the Microsoft Cloud.”

Carvana reports better-than-expected Q1 sales, gross profit per vehicle

Carvana reported its first-quarter earnings after markets closed on Wednesday.

Carvana In Arizona

Amazon reports strong Q1 results with mixed Q2 guidance

The e-commerce and cloud giant just released quarterly results.

Amazon Delivery Truck

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