AnalytixInsight

Last week, following the Fed’s 50 bps rate cut, Dow Jones rose 1.6%, S&P 500 gained 1.4%, and Nasdaq Composite was up 1.5%. Chipmaker Qualcomm has been considering a full takeover of Intel. Intel’s shares have fallen 60% this year. WSJ notes that a deal between Qualcomm and Intel has a high chance of being stopped. One possible way to close the deal would be for Qualcomm to sell assets or parts of Intel to other buyers. Earlier in the week, Intel was said to separate its foundry business, and struck a networking chip deal with AWS. OpenAI’s latest US$6.5 billion funding round is oversubscribed. Microsoft and BlackRock said Tuesday they are planning a US$30 billion fund to develop data centers and power plants to power artificial intelligence. The fund would be one of the largest of its kind. Constellation Energy struck a deal to provide Microsoft with nuclear power for the next two decades by bringing part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant back into service by 2028. Playtika will acquire mobile game maker SuperPlay for up to US$1.95 billion. Flutter Entertainment agreed to buy Playtech’s Italian gambling business for an enterprise value of €2.3 billion. Google earlier this year offered to sell a key part of its advertising technology empire—an ad exchange that helps ad buyers transact with sellers of ad space, including Google—to win over website publishers and end their legal attacks over Google’s dominance, Reuters reported. Snap, on Tuesday announced a new generation of its augmented reality glasses Spectacles. The new Spectacles overlay augmented reality filters over objects in the real world and operate via voice commands and hand gestures. EssilorLuxottica extended its partnership with Meta Platforms to develop smart eyewear for another decade.

Markets had a dramatic revival mid-week, as result, Dow Jones closed the week up 2.6%, S&P 500 was up 4%, and Nasdaq Composite gained 5.95% — their best weekly gains of the year. Market participants are widely expecting a Fed rate cut next week, with some disagreement over whether the Fed cuts 25 or 50 bps. OpenAI is reportedly raising up to US$7 billion at a US$150 billion valuation — making it worth more than 88% of S&P 500 firms. Notably, ChatGPT has passed 11 million paying subscribers. The CEOs of Nvidia, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Amazon Web Services and OpenAI met with the U.S. secretaries of energy and commerce at the White House on Thursday to discuss how the energy grid would handle growing power needs from AI and how to speed up the development of AI-focused data centers. Bitcoin prices and Coinbase shares fell after the U.S. presidential debate. Adobe shares tanked on lower year-end guidance. The European Court of Justice has ruled against Apple and Google on Tuesday, imposing billions in penalties against the tech giants. Apple will have to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes to Europe. In Canada, Sophic Client NowVertical Group streamlined its LATAM business structure, with a cash payment of US$130K satisfying all earn out obligations and the remaining holdback amount payable to the A10 vendors. Sophic Client, Plurilock entered a Critical Services partnership with TD SYNNEX to provide AI services in North America. Sophic Client, Clear Blue Technologies, announced a couple contracts in Africa. Shopify is adding PayPal to help process credit and debit card transactions for its Shopify Payments payment processing service in the U.S. BDC is writing its down venture capital portfolio by $220 million. BDC said in its report that it expects “challenging market dynamics for venture capital” to persist in fiscal 2025.

Last week, Dow Jones dropped 2.9%, S&P 500 lost 4.25% (worst weekly losses for both indices since March 2023), Nasdaq composite fell 5.8% (worst weekly loss since January 2022). Investors appear concerned the Fed may be behind the curve on a slowing economy, and the sell-off in AI stocks intensified. Nvidia plunged 9.5% on Tuesday, wiping nearly US$300 billion off the chipmaker’s market cap and pulling chip stocks down with it. Intel fell almost 8%, Marvell slid 8.2%, and Broadcom lost about 6%. AMD dropped 7.8%, and Qualcomm fell nearly 7%. Nvidia on Wednesday denied reports it received a subpoena from the Department of Justice over antitrust concerns. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s plan to raise money for new data centers, power sources, and chip manufacturing plants for artificial intelligence will start in the U.S. and could cost tens of billions of dollars, according to a Bloomberg report. Investors in other countries such as Canada, Korea, Japan and the United Arab Emirates also plan to participate, the report said. CBOE plans to start a platform for trading private company shares. Shares of AI software Firm C3.ai dropped 17%, despite stronger revenue growth projection. In Canada, Exro announced a public financing of up to approximately $30 million. Kits Eyecare increased its previously announced secondary offering of common shares to $11.4 million and increased the block trade of its common shares. Shopify will become Roblox’s first platform commerce partner. Sophic Client Ionik acquired Nimble5, a performance marketing company headquartered in San Diego, California for a total aggregate purchase price of ~US$33.7 million for cash, debt and stock, plus an earn-out consideration. Sophic Client Plurilock won a US$1.1 million contract with a U.S. agency.

Despite a strong Friday, markets ended the week mixed. Dow Jones rose 0.9%, S&P 500 was up 0.2% and Nasdaq Composite fell 0.9% during the week. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft have been in talks about participating in a financing that would value OpenAI at over US$100 billion. Nvidia’s quarterly forecast on Wednesday sent its stock down 6% in after-hours trading, weighing on shares of other chipmakers. CrowdStrike shares slipped 4% in extended trading on Wednesday after the cybersecurity software maker reported strong fiscal second-quarter results but reduced full-year guidance in the wake of a global outage. Affirm shares closed more than 30% higher on Thursday, a day after the installment lender said it expects to turn profitable on a GAAP basis by the fourth quarter of its fiscal year ending next June. Intel is exploring strategic options to turn around its business and has hired investment banks. Super Micro stock plunged 27% as it delayed its 10K filing a day after scathing short-seller report. ChatGPT has 200 million weekly active users, Meta AI has more than 185 million weekly active users and Apple is working on next-gen humanlike AI ‘personality’ that’s not Siri. In Canada, yet another small cap innovation company was taken out, as Shift4 will acquire Givex. Sophic Client Plurilock announced gross proceeds of over $2 million from warrant exercises and engaged Clear Street to review U.S. strategic options. Sophic Client, Intermap announced a strategic partnership with Aon. Sophic Clients, Ionik, OneSoft, Xcyte Digital, Plurilock, Clear Blue Technologies all reported quarterly results. Sophic Client, ADM Endeavors, Inc. is building a new facility to serve as a centralized manufacturing hub, fulfillment center, and retail storefront to support the Company’s growth. We believe the property and future facility are hidden assets not reflected in the stock price. The Potential fair market value vs. book value of the land and facility is about 3-5x. Canadian AI, Viggle announced it had raised a $19 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.