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Driving the recession fears, the ADP National Employment report showed U.S. private employers hired far fewer workers than expected in March. S&P 500's busiest tradesThe S&P 500 was down 0.52% at 4,079.37 points. Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, six declined, led lower by consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD), down 1.93%, followed by a 1.65% loss in information technology (.SPLRCT). Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 (.AD.SPX) by a 1.5-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted eight new highs and two new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 25 new highs and 218 new lows.

Earlier this week data showed falling factory orders and soft manufacturing activity. Traders' bets of a pause by the Fed in May stood at 60.5%, while odds of a 25-basis point interest rate hike was at 39.5%, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool. Defensive stocks such as consumer staples (.SPLRCS) were in the green among major S&P 500 sectors, with healthcare (.SPXHC) and utilities (.SPLRCU) hitting their highest in close to two months. The benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq are now on track for their first weekly declines in four in the holiday-shortened week. The S&P index recorded eight new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 23 new highs and 185 new lows.

The ADP National Employment report showed U.S. private employment rose by 145,000 jobs last month, compared with economists' projections of an increase of 200,000 jobs, adding to recent signs of a cooling labor market. With growing concerns about a worsening economic outlook following the recent turmoil in the banking sector, market expectations have shifted in favor of the U.S. central bank hitting the brakes on its interest rate hikes. "But at the same time, I think investors are closely watching to make sure that we don't fall into a deep recession." Traders' bets of a pause by the Fed in May shot up to 62.2%, while odds of a 25-basis point interest rate hike fell to 37.8%, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool. All eyes are now on the non-farm payrolls data for March, a more comprehensive employment report, that is due on Friday for more conclusive clues on the state of the labor market.

☆ Google says its AI supercomputer is faster, greener than Nvidia A100 chip
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Google has designed its own custom chip called the Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU. The Google TPU is now in its fourth generation. Google said its supercomputers make it easy to reconfigure connections between chips on the fly, helping avoid problems and tweak for performance gains. Google said that startup Midjourney used the system to train its model, which generates fresh images after being fed a few words of text. Google said it did not compare its fourth-generation to Nvidia's current flagship H100 chip because the H100 came to the market after Google's chip and is made with newer technology.

☆ Google says its AI supercomputer is faster, greener than Nvidia
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Google has designed its own custom chip called the Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU. The Google TPU is now in its fourth generation. Google said its supercomputers make it easy to reconfigure connections between chips on the fly, helping avoid problems and tweak for performance gains. "Circuit switching makes it easy to route around failed components," Google Fellow Norm Jouppi and Google Distinguished Engineer David Patterson wrote in a blog post about the system. Google said that startup Midjourney used the system to train its model, which generates fresh images after being fed a few words of text.

The ADP National Employment report showed U.S. private employment rose by 145,000 jobs last month, compared with economists' projections of an increase of 200,000 jobs, adding to recent signs of a cooling economy. Traders' bets of a pause by the Fed in May shot up to 60.8%, while odds of a 25-basis point interest rate hike fell to 39.2%, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool. Defensive stocks such as healthcare (.SPXHC), utilities (.SPLRCU) and consumer staples (.SPLRCS) were in the green among major S&P 500 sectors. All eyes are now on the non-farm payrolls data for March, a more comprehensive employment report, that is due on Friday for further clues on the state of the labor market. Both the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) are now on track for their first weekly declines in four in the holiday-shortened week.

☆ Ex-Intel chief architect explores data center deals for AI startup in India
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Chavi Mehta | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BENGALURU, April 5 (Reuters) - Intel Corp's (INTC.O) former chief architect Raja Koduri is in talks with Hiranandani-backed data center operator Yotta for a deal for his generative artificial intelligence startup, which he said will have a big presence in India. Koduri, who has worked on nearly two dozen generations of computer graphics chip, plans to build local data centers to ease the access to massive computing power needed for generative AI tools. Generative AI refers to technology such as ChatGPT that can use prompts to whip up haikus, essays and images. The southern state of Karnataka and Telangana have been "very supportive", he said, adding that subsidies on electricity will be crucial as data centers are power guzzlers. He is also joining the board of AI chip startup Tenstorrent, led by veteran chip architect Jim Keller, who led the design of Tesla's (TSLA.O) self-driving chip in 2016.

☆ Qualcomm, Nvidia spar for top spot in AI chip efficiency tests
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Nvidia dominates the market for training AI models with huge amounts of data. Qualcomm's chips hit 197.6 server queries per watt versus 108.4 queries per watt for Nvidia. Neuchips, a startup founded by veteran Taiwanese chip academic Youn-Long Lin, took the top spot with 227 queries per watt. Qualcomm also beat Nvidia at object detection with a score of 3.2 queries per watt versus Nvidia's 2.4 queries per watt. Nvidia hit 10.8 samples per watt, while Neuchips ranked second at 8.9 samples per watt and Qualcomm was in third place at 7.5 samples per watt.

☆ Futures fall as investors await key economic data amid recession fears
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

ET, Dow e-minis were down 46 points, or 0.14%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 8.75 points, or 0.21%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 30.5 points, or 0.23%. Weak job openings data and falling factory orders on Tuesday followed soft manufacturing activity data on Monday, sparking fresh concerns about economic outlook and pushing the S&P 500 (.SPX) to snap a four-day winning streak in the prior session. Escalating oil prices following the OPEC+ group's output cuts have also worsened the outlook for inflation, adding to investors' anxiety. Both the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) are on track to notch weekly declines in four in the holiday-shortened week. Reporting by Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita BhattacharjeeOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Investing Club mailbag: When do we expect our stocks to hit their price targets?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

How far out does a Club stock price target project: three months out, six months out, or one year out? Our price targets are based (usually but not always) on earnings estimates for the next full fiscal year. They also update their price targets based on these updated estimates. As a result, sometimes price targets are moving targets versus planting a flag in the ground about one certain price. (For a look at how to arrive at our price targets in the first place, we've written about that in a previous commentary .)

OAKLAND, California, March 28 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence chip startup Cerebras Systems on Tuesday said it released open source ChatGPT-like models for the research and business community to use for free in an effort to foster more collaboration. Silicon Valley-based Cerebras released seven models all trained on its AI supercomputer called Andromeda, including smaller 111 million parameter language models to a larger 13 billion parameter model. Cerebras said the smaller models can be deployed on phones or smart speakers while the bigger ones run on PCs or servers, although complex tasks like large passage summarization require larger models. Most of the AI models today are trained on Nvidia Corp's (NVDA.O) chips, but more and more startups like Cerebras are trying to take share in that market. The models trained on Cerebras machines can also be used on Nvidia systems for further training or customization, said Feldman.

☆ Nvidia shows new research on using AI to improve chip designs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A smartphone with a displayed NVIDIA logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken March 6, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationMarch 27 (Reuters) - Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), the world's leading designer of computer chips used in creating artificial intelligence, on Monday showed new research that explains how AI can be used to improve chip design. Chip design engineers use complex design software from firms like Synopsys Inc (SNPS.O) and Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS.O) to help them optimize the placement of those transistors. On Monday, Nvidia released a paper showing that it could use a combination of artificial intelligence techniques to find better ways to place big groups of transistors. The Nvidia research took an existing effort developed by University of Texas researchers using what is called reinforcement learning and added a second layer of artificial intelligence on top of it to get even better results.

☆ Here's our March rapid-fire update on all 36 stocks in Jim Cramer's Investing Club portfolio
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

Here's a rapid-fire update on every stock in the CNBC Investing Club portfolio. But importantly, the chipmaker has joined Apple in rarified air, becoming an "own it, don't trade it" stock for the Club. The company's business can withstand an economic slowdown and benefits from a weaker U.S. dollar because of its large international presence. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio.

☆ How facial recognition is helping Putin curb dissent
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

There officers told the 51-year-old bank employee that the metro’s facial recognition system had flagged him for detention because of his political activism. Facial recognition is now helping police to identify and sweep up the Kremlin’s opponents as a preventive measure, whenever they choose. The facial recognition system in Moscow is powered by algorithms produced by one Belarusian company and three Russian firms. All but one said they understood from officers that they were flagged for detention by facial recognition. Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse and identify faces.

☆ Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, prophet of the rise of the PC, dies at 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Noel Randewich | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

SAN FRANCISCO, March 24 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose "Moore's Law" predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, died Friday at the age of 94, the company announced. Intel and Moore's family philanthropic foundation said he died surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii. In recent years, Intel rivals such as Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) have contended that Moore's Law no longer holds as improvements in chip manufacturing have slowed down. He went to work at the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory where he met future Intel cofounder Robert Noyce. In 1968, Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to start the memory chip company soon to be named Intel, an abbreviation of Integrated Electronics.

☆ Wall St ends higher as Yellen vows actions to safeguard deposits
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"The market as a whole is telling you is there are a lot of different ways to interpret all the things people are saying." Interest rate hikes by central banks around the world have stressed the banking sector, which became manifest with the recent failures of SVB Financial Group (SIVB.O) and Signature Bank (SBNY.O). Comments from the Bank of England that inflation will probably quickly fade also helped fuel hopes of light at the end of the central bank tightening tunnel. "Every central bank that was on path to raise rates raised them," GLOBALT's Martin added. Shares of First Republic Bank (FRC.N) dropped in volatile trading in the wake of Yellen's testimony.

☆ Wall Street rallies on hopes of Fed policy pause
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Stephen Culp | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"Today the market is bouncing back on what was a dovish Fed hike yesterday," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky. "Powell did a good job sticking to the party line on inflation and continued to jawbone hawkish even though the hike leaned dovish." Comments from the Bank of England that inflation will probably quickly fade also helped fuel hopes of light at the end of the central bank tightening tunnel. Among the 11 sectors of the S&P 500, communication services (.SPLRCL) and tech (.SPLRCT) led the percentage gainers. The S&P 500 posted four new 52-week highs and 14 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 197 new lows.

Traders' bets are almost equally split between the Fed pausing its rate hikes in May and another 25 bps hike, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool. Communication services (.SPLRCL) and information technology (.SPLRCT) led the gains among the S&P 500 sector indexes, all of which rose, except utilities (.SPLRCU). Bank of America (BAC.N) and UBS (UBS.N) now see the Fed funds rate target peaking at 5-5.25% in May compared to earlier forecasts of 5.25-5.5%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.62-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and 3.27-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P index recorded one new 52-week high and five new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 17 new highs and 27 new lows.

Bank of America (BAC.N) and UBS (UBS.N) now see the Fed funds rate target peaking at 5-5.25% in May compared to earlier forecasts of 5.25-5.5%. Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) rose 1.9% after Needham raised its price target on the chipmaker on likely benefit from near-term data center strength. ET is expected to show a rise in jobless claims last week, hinting at some cooling in labor demand. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (REGN.O) jumped 8.6% on promising results on its blockbuster asthma drug Dupixent from a lung disease trial. Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Vinay DwivediOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The U.S. central bank's two-day policy meeting will end at 2 p.m. ET to gauge the central bank’s rate-hike trajectory. U.S. Treasury yields rose, with the yield on the two-year note, which best reflects interest rate expectations, last at 4.212%. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.56-to-1 ratio on the NYSE a 1.75-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P index recorded no new 52-week high and four new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 13 new highs and 34 new lows.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (Reuters) - Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O), the U.S. semiconductor designer that dominates the market for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, said it has modified its flagship product into a version that is legal to export to China. On Tuesday, the company said it has similarly developed a China-export version of its H100 chip. The rules around AI chips imposed a test that bans those with both powerful computing capabilities and high chip-to-chip data transfer rates. A chip industry source in China told Reuters the H800 mainly reduced the chip-to-chip data transfer rate to about half the rate of the flagship H100. The Nvidia spokesperson declined to say how the China-focused H800 differs from the H100, except that "our 800 series products are fully compliant with export control regulations."

☆ 'A tough stock not to own.' Wall Street endorses Club name Nvidia, as it dominates AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Of 15 bank notes surveyed this week, 13 firms have a buy rating or equivalent on Nvidia, citing its AI capabilities. But, longer term, Nvidia's AI applications portend significant upside for the stock in the years to come. Raymond James Reiterated a strong buy rating – one level above buy — and price target of $290 per share. UBS The bank said its buy rating and $270-per-share price target are "under review pending further analysis." That's why the commentary in an analyst note or in a Club story is more relevant than any rating or price target.

☆ Nvidia turns to AI cloud rental to spread new technology
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Huang said Nvidia was also working with Microsoft and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) to offer its supercomputers, used to create new AI products, as a service. Nvidia's new rental service, called DGX Cloud, could give many more developers the chance to access tens of thousands of its chips at once. Biotech firm Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) and software firm ServiceNow Inc (NOW.N) have started using the service, Nvidia said. Nvidia also launched a service called AI Foundations to help companies train their customized artificial intelligence models. Nvidia said it was working with ASML Holding (ASML.AS), Synopsys Inc (SNPS.O) and TSMC to bring it to market.

Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) unveiled its own service, known as "Picasso," that uses AI to generate images, videos and 3D applications from text descriptions. Nvidia trained the technology on images licensed from Getty Images, Shutterstock Inc (SSTK.N), and Adobe, and plans to pay royalties. Image-generation technology is "trained" on billions of images, but whether that use is legally permitted is not always clear. Because the AI has been trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and older content where copyright has expired, the resulting creations are safe for commercial use, it said. "We're very interested in making this creator friendly," Ely Greenfield, chief technology officer for digital media at Adobe, told Reuters.

On Tuesday at its developer conference GTC, Nvidia unveiled CUDA Quantum, a platform for building quantum algorithms using popular classical computer coding languages C++ and python. "CUDA Quantum will do the same for quantum computing, enabling domain scientists to seamlessly integrate quantum into their applications and gain access to a new disruptive computing technology," said Tim Costa, Nvidia's director of HPC and quantum. One difference, Costa said, is while CUDA is proprietary, CUDA Quantum is open source and was developed with input from many quantum computing companies. Nvidia also launched a new hardware system called DGX Quantum to connect the quantum computer with classical computers. "We see more and more demand to integrate these quantum computers with standard computers," said Itamar Sivan, co-founder and CEO of Quantum Machines.

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