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☆ One measure of 'the market' is up 34% this year while another is only up 6%—here's why
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Ryan Ermey | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

All three "headline indexes" are considered, in one way or another, proxies for the stock market, and over long periods, they've tended to perform pretty similarly. S&P 500When investing pros talk about market returns, they're usually talking about the S&P 500. The index tracks roughly the 500 largest U.S.-traded stocks, comprising 80% of all stocks traded on the market. Created in 1957, the index was the U.S.'s first index weighted by market capitalization (stock price times total outstanding shares), and today it is the favored benchmark index for mutual fund managers who measure themselves against the broad stock market. Nasdaq CompositeThe Nasdaq Composite includes all stocks listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market — the first electronic stock exchange.

Persons: you'll, Tesla, Dow, Nvidia — Organizations: Nasdaq, Dow, CNBC, Dow Jones Industrial, P, Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal . Companies, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia Locations: lockstep, U.S

Even taking into account the dotcom bust and market crash following the 1999-2000 cycle, stocks still shone brighter. The average return of a 100% equity portfolio was 12.75%, an all-bond portfolio returned 9.10%, and a 60/40 portfolio generated 11.09% on average. Equities returned around 26% in the year after the Fed stopped tightening, bonds between 6-8%, and a 60/40 portfolio around 18%. Blended together, a 60/40 portfolio generated double-digit returns after five of these six cycles, including 25% in the mid-1990s. No two economic cycles, Fed reaction functions, inflationary dynamics or asset price dynamics are the same.

Persons: Joe Kleven, Kleven, Paul Volcker, Shelly Simpson, Simpson, Jamie McGeever, Andrea Ricci Organizations: Fed, Nasdaq, NYSE, Mega Tech, ICE, Treasury, Reuters, Thomson Locations: ORLANDO, Florida

☆ Analyst Dan Ives sees tech stocks gaining another 15% in the second half, led by these A.I. plays
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( John Melloy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Technology analyst Dan Ives sees the rally in the industry's shares continuing in the second half, despite many calls on Wall Street that the gains are getting ahead of themselves. Ives disagrees and doesn't see this as a Dotcom Bubble moment but a "1995 Internet moment" with the boom from artificial intelligence only just beginning. "The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th derivatives of this AI Gold Rush are just starting to evolve for the tech landscape based on our recent work in the field." XLK YTD mountain S & P 500 tech sector so far in 2023 Ives sees tech stocks up another 12% to 15% in the second half. The analyst's two favorite stocks going into the second half are Microsoft and Nvidia, which are up 40% and 189%, respectively, so far this year.

Persons: Dan Ives, Ives, Rush Organizations: Communications, Microsoft, Nvidia, Wall

☆ Companies without direct A.I. link try to ride the Wall Street craze
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A robot plays the piano at the Apsara Conference, a cloud computing and artificial intelligence conference, in China, on Oct. 19, 2021. The artificial intelligence craze has consumed Wall Street in 2023. The tool touts some impressive capabilities, and spurred an AI race with rival Google announcing it's own chat box - Bard AI - only a few months later. Now some with little to no historical ties to artificial intelligence have touted the technology on conference calls to analysts and investors. McMullen specifically pointed to how AI could help streamline customer surveys and help Kroger take the data and implement it into stores at a more speedy clip.

Persons: OpenAI, Rodney McMullen, McMullen, Kroger Organizations: Apsara Conference, European, Google, Investors, Nvidia, Kroger Locations: China, European Union

☆ Wall Street is worried the stock market is already overvalued
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( John Melloy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Even as the stock market is just trying to claw its way out of a bear market, multiple Wall Street firms on Thursday raised concerns that equities are already overvalued. Following a breakout in the past month, the S & P 500 is up more than 20% from its October low and is at a 13-month high. But while an official bull market is not yet confirmed (S & P 500 needs to hit a new all-time high for that), the stock market may already be overvalued, some major strategists said. .SPX ALL mountain S & P 500 long term The S & P 500 is trading at forward price-earnings ratio of 18.8, compared to the average valuation of 15.4 times the last four decades, according to UBS. Nevertheless, normally uber-bullish Wall Street is having trouble seeing boom times ahead for equity investors with valuations already so high.

Persons: Solita Marcelli, annualized, Jonathan Golub, Michael Bloom Organizations: UBS, Global Wealth Management, Americas, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse

☆ New Zealand court sentences Megaupload coders to prison, Herald reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SYDNEY, June 15 (Reuters) - Two coders at the file-sharing website Megaupload were sentenced to prison by a New Zealand court on Thursday after pleading guilty in a deal in which they promised to testify against the site's founder Kim Dotcom, according to the New Zealand Herald. Mathias Ortmann was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison and Bram van der Kolk to two years and six months by the High Court in Auckland, the newspaper reported on its website. German-born Dotcom, who has a New Zealand residency, is fighting extradition to the United States relating to his Megaupload site, which was shut down in 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion. The sentences for Ortmann and van der Kolk were significantly lowered from 10 years as the court gave substantial discounts for the guilty pleas, assistance to the FBI and rehabilitation efforts, the NZ Herald said. U.S. authorities say Dotcom, Ortmann, van der Kolk and a fourth Megaupload executive who has since died had cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material.

Persons: Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk, Dotcom, van der, Praveen Menon, Peter Graff Organizations: SYDNEY, New Zealand Herald, High, FBI, NZ Herald, Twitter, Thomson Locations: New Zealand, Auckland, Zealand, United States

☆ Meet 19 executives guiding eBay's online marketplace toward AI, ads, and authentication
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

The company is focusing on specific product categories and leaning into AI and authentication. The e-commerce marketplace, founded in 1995, recently grew quarterly revenues more than expected despite economic uncertainty and a challenging consumer environment. eBay has recently launched multiple product authenticity programs to promote trust in the platform and drive engagement in these categories. It's leaning into AI, building proprietary technology meant to improve eBay's visual search results and empower sellers to use generative AI in their product listings. From executives piloting eBay's AI initiatives to others connecting with sellers around the world, here are the 19 power players driving the company's next phase of growth.

Persons: GMV Organizations: eBay

☆ Ron Insana says an AI bubble may be forming, but we're not there yet
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Ron Insana | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

How to trade it Let's remember the elements of a bubble, as defined by many market historians who have written about such financial market phenomena (myself included). The public increasingly has been buying related tech stocks and associated ETFs, but we have yet to see the single-minded focus of the entire stock buying world come to bear on AI stocks. In 1999 alone, some 456 stocks went public at the height of the internet mania. If there is to be a bubble in AI, it's the early days. Also, "easy money" from the Federal Reserve, a key component of financial frenzies, is not fueling speculation in publicly traded AI shares, or any other asset class for that matter.

Persons: Jaap Arriens, Charles MacKay, John Kenneth Galbraith, Edward Chancellor, Charles Kindleberger, David Faber Organizations: Nurphoto, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Adobe, Fund, Nasdaq, CNBC, Federal Reserve Locations: Sea, Mississippi, England, France

☆ 'It's not a bubble yet': Wharton's Jeremy Siegel predicts Big Tech boom fueled by A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Sheila Chiang | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Wharton professor and renowned economist Jeremy Siegel is bullish on a Big Tech boom fueled by artificial intelligence despite concerns of a bubble. He noted that he has been getting questions around whether it would lead to a repeat of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s. Economist David Rosenberg, known for his contrarian views, had predicted that the current AI boom could collapse like late 1990s dot-com stocks. The dotcom bubble burst when capital dried up after a massive adoption of the internet and a proliferation of available venture capital into internet-based companies, especially startups that had no track record of success. "First, there was excitement about AI and Nvidia ratified that excitement with blowout earnings.

☆ Investing in AI: how to avoid the hype
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Naomi Rovnick | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

SummarySummary Companies AI boom brings fresh challenge for investorsAI-themed stocks highly valuedStick with big tech not AI stocks - investorsLONDON, May 26(Reuters) - Experienced tech investors are hunting for undervalued opportunities in an over-valued space. Investors are chasing exposure to generative AI, the technology run by ChatGPT that learns from analysing vast datasets to generate text, images and computer code. Businesses are trying to use generative AI to speed up video editing, recruitment and even legal work. GAM's Hawtin said he has also hunted out companies that provide the "picks and shovels," necessary for enabling new AI technology. Amazon's Bedrock service, for example, lets companies customise generative AI models rather than invest in developing them themselves.

☆ 'Price bubble' in A.I. stocks will wreck rally, economist David Rosenberg predicts
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( Stephanie Landsman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Economist David Rosenberg, a bear known for his contrarian views, believes enthusiasm surrounding AI has become a major distraction from recession risks. "No question that we have a price bubble," the Rosenberg Research president told CNBC's "Fast Money" on Thursday. "[This] looks very weird," said Rosenberg, who served as Merrill Lynch's chief North American economist from 2002 to 2009. Just seven mega-caps have accounted for 90% of this year's price performance," Rosenberg wrote. While mega cap tech outperforms, Rosenberg sees ominous trading activity in banks , consumer discretionary stocks and transports .

Persons: David Rosenberg, CNBC's, Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch's, Jensen Huang Organizations: Rosenberg Research, Nasdaq, Nvidia, Microsoft

☆ Wall St Week Ahead Artificial intelligence gives real boost to U.S. stock market
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Lewis Krauskopf | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - Recent advances in artificial intelligence are fueling optimism over how businesses can operate more productively in the years ahead. They are also providing a big boost to the stock market. About 25% to 50% of those gains are owed to "the buzz around artificial intelligence," she noted. Indeed, optimism over AI is a key factor supporting a stock market facing numerous headwinds. His firm owns shares of Microsoft, Nvidia and Alphabet.

May 15 (Reuters) - Greg Becker, the former chief executive officer of Silicon Valley Bank, is set to appear before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, two months after the collapse of his bank sparked panic among bank customers and investors, forcing the government to backstop deposits. California banking regulators moved quickly to shut down Silicon Valley Bank on March 10 after depositors withdrew $42 billion in 24 hours. Becker will testify before the Senate Banking Committee alongside Scott Shay and Eric Howell, the former chair and president, respectively, of Signature Bank. When his manager left to work for Silicon Valley Bank, Becker followed, he said on a 2021 Bloomberg podcast. Before becoming president and CEO of SVB Financial Group, Becker co-founded SVB Capital, the company's investment arm.

☆ There Are No Universal Salves
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Heather Havrilesky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

My children and I were visiting New York City’s most important landmarks, so naturally we began our journey at the Glossier flagship store in SoHo. Ever since 2014, those loyal to dewiness and glossiness have sought a consecrated place to pay homage to Balm Dotcom universal salve and Boy Brow grooming pomade. We believe beauty is about having fun, celebrating freedom, and being present, because no matter where you are in your beauty journey — YOU LOOK GOOD. The mirror in the Glossier flagship store would like a word. I expect to be miraculously transformed into a fresh-faced teenager, but in the mirror I discover a creased old crone with inexplicably neon-orange lips.

☆ Stanley Druckenmiller says A.I. could win big coming out of a recession, and he's bullish on Nvidia
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"It could be a beautiful opportunity in a hard landing just like '01, '02 ... a beautiful opportunity when the tech bubble bursts. NVDA YTD mountain Nvidia "My firm has only been able to participate in AI by owning Nvidia and Microsoft," Druckenmiller said. "It's not even clear to me if we had a really bad recession, that Nvidia would even come down." And now we have a big hike in interest rates." The Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates for 10 times since last year, taking the fed funds rate to a target range of 5%-5.25%, the highest since August 2007.

☆ Stocks could be in for big gains ahead if this is the Fed's last rate hike, history shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

History shows that Wall Street could be in for solid gains ahead if the Federal Reserve makes Wednesday's expected rate hike its last. A full year after the 2000 cycle saw the S & P 500 down 12.35%. The S & P 500 added a mere 0.1% in late July and 0.3% in August. December of 2018 saw the S & P 500 rebound 6.53% the following month. Still, the central bank could be wary of ending its tightening cycle yet in an effort to tackle still elevated inflation.

Generative AI gobbles up reams of computing power, amplifying the urgency of Meta's capacity scramble, said five of the sources. Executives also that spring set about reorganizing Meta's AI units, naming two new heads of engineering in the process, including Janardhan, the author of the September memo. According to four of the sources, Meta did not prioritize building generative AI products until after the launch of ChatGPT in November. Zuckerberg announced a new top-level generative AI team in February that he said would "turbocharge" the company's work in the area. Carvill, the Meta spokesperson, said the company has been building generative AI products on different teams for more than a year.

☆ Inside Meta's scramble to catch up on A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

For more than a year, Meta has been engaged in a massive project to whip its AI infrastructure into shape. He declined to comment on whether Meta abandoned its AI chip. Generative AI gobbles up reams of computing power, amplifying the urgency of Meta's capacity scramble, said five of the sources. By 2021, that two-pronged approach proved slower and less efficient than one built around GPUs, which were also more flexible in running different types of models than Meta's chip, the two people said. Executives also that spring set about reorganizing Meta's AI units, naming two new heads of engineering in the process, including Janardhan, the author of the September memo.

Organizations: & & '

☆ What Bard said when Google VC asked the A.I. about the value of corporate diversity
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Carolyn Chun | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Stewart asked Bard, Google's first public version of a generative AI chatbot — and a rival to Microsoft -funded OpenAI ChatGPT — about the value of corporate diversity. The AI generated many of the points she makes in pushing the case for greater diversity in the workplace. Gradient is looking for founders that are building this AI "data moat" and "go-to expertise" into their businesses, she said. But she stressed that as AI is adopted, it is important that the development of the tech reflects diversity in development. Thinking about generational diversity may be as important as ethnic, racial and gender diversity as AI goes mainstream, too.

☆ Bank of America's top global strategist warns there's 'plenty of room for more S&P 500 downside' as 80% of recessions since 1933 have torpedoed stocks by 20% after they started
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( William Edwards | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Hartnett says S&P 500 EPS will fall by 16% in 2023, compared to the market's view of -4%. Some argue that stocks have already priced in a recession, having fallen 20% in 2022 (though the S&P 500 has rallied 8% year-to-date). He continued: "Plenty of room for more S&P 500 downside…since 1929, 2/3 of the S&P 500 peak-to-trough drawdowns have occurred during, not before, US recessions." So whether we have an economic recession or not it isn't as important as the earnings recession," he said. Most strategists see a more mild decline in store for stocks, and most — including Wilson — see the S&P 500 finishing the year somewhere near 4,000.

☆ Layoffs are up nearly fivefold so far this year with tech companies leading the way
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"With rate hikes continuing and companies' reigning in costs, the large-scale layoffs we are seeing will likely continue." Year to date, job cuts have soared to 270,416, an increase of 396% from the same period a year ago. The main reason cited for job cuts has been market and economic conditions, with cost-cutting the next most-often mentioned factor. Along with the high level of layoffs, job openings have begun to fall. The Federal Reserve has been targeting the ultra-tight labor market as it battles inflation still running near 40-year highs.

☆ Cramer: Here's why I plan to trim some stocks at this stage of the bull market
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +17 min

Back when bulls were everywhere From the time the great bull market began in 1982 until the financial collapse of 2007, we pretty much assumed stocks would always go higher. We often forget what the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 was all about. A runaway bull market in all but banks — which are actually fueling the rally with their own ineptitude. My closing take, though, is that we have at last shaken off the ghosts of the Great Recession. But accept we are in a bull market and recognize that those who don't know it yet never will.

☆ Google giggles at China tech’s shrinking act
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, March 31 (Reuters Breakingviews) - As an $18 trillion economy home to 1.4 billion people, China is a natural font of statistical superlatives. The country’s internet giants, however, are dwarfed by American colossi like the $1.3 trillion Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL.O). Access to cheap capital helped founders like Alibaba’s Jack Ma quickly diversify and build sprawling empires with global ambitions. Meanwhile, the top eight U.S. tech names, led by Apple (AAPL.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Alphabet, are worth $8 trillion today. The American tech giants already generate three times more revenue and nearly five times more free cash flow than their aspirant Chinese challengers, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.

☆ As volatility persists, this is what investors can expect in the second quarter — according to history
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Ganesh Rao | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

This is particularly notable as, after a year of negative returns, the S & P 500 index tends to decline during the first quarter , and the MSCI World Index fairs only marginally better. Historically, when the S & P 500 does rise under these conditions, it delivers an average return rate of just over 14%. Global stocks In comparison, the MSCI World Index , which captures more than 1,500 large and mid-cap stocks across 23 developed countries, has generally performed better. The index has risen 67% of the time in the second quarter following a negative year of returns bouncing off a positive first quarter. However, the index offers lower volatility compared to the S & P 500, with stocks rising or falling only by 6%.

☆ Where Paul Wick, seasoned tech stock investor, is raising his bets now
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Sarah Min | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

So when a position opened up at the Seligman Communications and Information fund, the firm's then-chief investment officer asked Wick to take it over. Today, the Columbia Seligman Technology and Information fund (CCIZX) that Wick began running on New Year's Day in 1990, has $8.5 billion in assets under management. "It's really hard to guess how will the technology industry change in five years. By now, Wick has relationships going back decades in the tech industry. As of January, the Technology and Information fund held 2.96% of its assets in Bloom, up from 2.36% in October.

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