Yiwen Lu11/8/24

US stocks had their best week of 2024

The S&P 500 was up 0.4% on Friday and 4.7% this week, its biggest weekly advance so far this year, as the postelection rally continues. The index crossed 6,000 briefly earlier today. Similarly, the Nasdaq 100 climbed 5.4% this week, while the Russell 2000 jumped 8.6%.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors were up this week, the first time since August. The consumer-discretionary sector added 7.5% this week, leading all sectors. It was primarily driven by Tesla, which rose 29.3% over the past five sessions.

On the day, communication services, technology, and materials declined.

Tesla was also the only Magnificent 7 stock that moved upward today. Other Big Tech companies were not enjoying the market rally as much as stocks that have a more obvious linkage to the president-elect, as the likes of Alphabet and Amazon declined modestly on Friday. Among other index movers, taser-maker Axon rose a whopping 28.7% after posting upbeat earnings; Airbnb fell 8.7% after a slight bump on Thursday.

Bonds had their biggest weekly gains since early September. Crude-oil futures fell on Friday, though the commodity still made gains this week. The US dollar advanced for the sixth consecutive week. Bitcoin neared the $77,000 benchmark.

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Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks whipsaw ahead of next week’s Big Tech earnings

Stocks struggled for direction ahead of next week’s Fed meeting and Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, and Apple earnings.

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Earnings season a chance for AI hyperscalers to “get their mojo back”

Hyperscalers need more “hype” on their potential AI moneymaking opportunities or to show that their “scale” continues to drive huge growth through this spending binge.

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Matt Phillips10h

Active ETF offers exposure to Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Active ETF Baron First Principles ETF has added a large stake in Elon Musk’s privately held SpaceX, with daily disclosures of the active ETFs holdings on Friday showing SpaceX now makes up 22% of the fund’s portfolio.

Such a stake would open up a potentially big opportunity for those looking to get access to some of the eccentric billionaire’s privately held business empire, ahead of any public offering of the shares — which is reportedly in the works for this year.

Run by mutual fund manager Ron Baron, the ETF also owns stakes in other Musk vehicles such as privately held xAI and publicly traded Tesla. The fund — which has only been trading since December 15 — is down slightly on the day.

markets

AMD jumps as Intel’s supply constraints offer chance for CPU market share gains

As investors react negatively to Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s warning that the chipmaker’s turnaround effort will be a “multiyear journey,” that cautionary note is also a reminder that Advanced Micro Devices has more time to make hay while the sun shines.

AMD had been one of the companies with the most to lose should attempts by the government and Nvidia to prop up the beleaguered chipmaker bear fruit. In particular, Intel and AMD are locked in a fierce competition in the CPU market. During its earnings call on Thursday, Intel said that supply constraints were preventing the company from realizing strong demand.

JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur thinks that gives AMD more room to continue to muscle in on Intel’s CPU turf.

“We still view Intel as being at risk of further share loss in its product businesses (particularly in server CPU given AMD’s strong product portfolio/roadmap and Intel’s supply constraints),” he wrote.

AMD is up nearly 3% as of 11:40 a.m. ET, working on its ninth straight day of gains. A positive close would match its longest winning streak since 2005.

markets

Max Knoblauch12h

Spotify climbs following an upgrade from Goldman as it prepares to hike prices

Music streamer Spotify climbed about 3% on Friday following an upgrade to “buy” from “neutral” from Goldman Sachs.

The upgrade comes ahead of Spotify’s already announced US subscription price hike next month — its third since 2023. Goldman lowered its 12-month Spotify price target to $700 from $735.

“We are surprised how negative investor sentiment has turned with respect to [Spotify] on the back of the AI theme. In our opinion, we see SPOT as well-positioned to capitalize on/benefit from rising generative AI adoption,” Goldman said in its Friday note, adding that it’s watching how the rise of AI music platforms could impact Spotify and its music royalty payment structure.

Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley published a survey that found up to 60% of Gen Z respondents listen to AI music, for an average of three hours per week. Last week, Bandcamp announced it would ban AI music on its platform.

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