AnalytixInsight

Last week, stock markets had a strong finish. On Friday, S&P 500 rose past its January 2022 all-time high. Dow Jones closed at all-time closing high. Nasdaq, while still not still not at a record high closed at a two year high after rising 2.9%. Reddit plans to go public by the end of March. Shein faces data privacy review from Chinese regulator, potentially complicating the Company’s US IPO. Elon Musk threatened to stymie Tesla’s development in artificial intelligence and robotics if he isn’t granted more control of Tesla. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that his top priority right now is launching the next version of the company’s large language model, likely to be called GPT-5. Sam Altman also plans to establish a global network of factories to manufacture semiconductors. Meta aims to build artificial general intelligence, software that can reason like humans do, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. Google and YouTube are cutting hundreds of jobs. Baidu stock sinks the most since 2022 despite denying links to PLA AI. Chip design software maker Synopsys said on Tuesday it would buy Ansys in a US$35 billion cash-and-stock deal. The European Union intends to block Amazon’s US$1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot. The Justice Department could sue Apple over Antitrust by March. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the legal case between Apple and Epic Games, allowing a lower court’s decision to stand that requires Apple to open up its App Store to alternative payment systems. Sophic Client Kraken Robotics’ insider buying was mentioned in the Globe and Mail. Dye & Durham announced a $126 million bought deal offering. Flexport is raising $260 million from Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders. Sophic Client UGE announced Q4 2023 milestones and business updates.

After the first week of 2024 saw lots of selling, perhaps to optimize taxes on 2023 capital gains — last week was better for investors. Major indices, having found support at key levels are now at important resistance levels. Dow Jones was up 0.3% last week, S&P 500 gained 1.8%, hitting 52-week highs and is now within a few points of its all-time high. Nasdaq rose 3.1% and is encountering resistance at 15,000. More than 100 companies are getting ready to list on Nasdaq after filing confidentially with the SEC, Nasdaq’s CEO Adena Friedman told investing publication Barron’s. Circle has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, the company said on Thursday, signaling the stablecoin issuer is taking another run at becoming a publicly traded firm after a special purpose acquisition deal fell apart in 2022. The first Bitcoin ETFs were approved by US regulators, and saw US$4.6 billion in volume on the first day of trading. Microsoft passed Apple in market capitalization as of Friday’s close, becoming the most valuable company. OpenAI launched a new store for users to share custom chatbots. Twilio’s CEO is stepping down, under pressure from activist shareholders. Numerous companies announced job cuts, including Alphabet, Amazon, Twitch, Discord, Unity, Humane. Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it’s agreed to buy networking gear vendor Juniper Networks for about US$14 billion, or US$40 per share, in an all-cash deal. Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman are competing to acquire DocuSign with a market value of about US$12.5 billion. Apple’s Vision Pro headset could sell out quickly at launch, a top analyst predicted. Carta said late Monday it was closing a part of its business under fire for improperly using private customer data. Sophic Client, UGE reached commercial operation on a rooftop Community Solar project in Peekskill, New York. Independent third party values the project at US$1.4 million or US$2.98/Watt.