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Yiwen Lu

US stocks rebound as tech stocks rally

The S&P 500 finished Tuesday up 1%, rebounding from its worst session in over a month on Monday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 outperformed the market and rose 1.6%, while the Russell 2000 gained a modest 0.1%.

The rally was led by big tech. The technology sector ETF was the best performer of the day, up 1.9%. All Magnificent Seven stocks advanced, and Nvidia surged 4%, logging its fifth straight session of gains. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF rose 1.7% as Wall Street continued to place bullish bets on AI.

While the rest of the market cheered, energy, the only sector that gained over the past week, slid 2.6%. 

Energy joined oil futures in losses. The November WTI crude settled down 4.6% on Tuesday, after rising for five sessions in a row due to the tension in the Middle East. This came as militant group Hezbollah endorsed Lebanon’s ceasefire efforts with Israel. The global benchmark, December Brent crude, dropped 4.6% as well. However, both benchmarks were still up more than 8% so far this month. 

Treasury yields changed little as rate cuts expectations stabilized. Traders are still overwhelmingly pricing in a 86.7% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut during the Federal Reserve’s November meeting, slightly up from Monday. 

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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.

markets

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

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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