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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.

As the year comes to an end, may the Holiday Season bring you happiness and 2024 be filled with investing success. We will be back in January. Last week, the market looked past Wednesday’s sell-off and major indexes rose for an eighth straight week — Dow Jones rose 0.2%, S&P 500 was up 0.75%, Nasdaq gained 1.2%. Software startup ServiceTitan is preparing for 2024 IPO. Anthropic, is in talks to raise US$750 million in a venture round led by Menlo Ventures. OpenAI is in talks to raise new funding at a valuation of US$100 billion or more. ByteDance’s sales broke US$110 billion to pass Tencent in 2023. China’s iPhone ban accelerates across government and state firms. Adobe and Figma called off the US$20 billion acquisition of Figma by Adobe. Adobe now has US$6 billion for AI and buybacks after the deal collapsed. Cybersecurity firm Okta will buy startup Spera for a reported US$100 million. Shares of Micron gained about 6% in premarket trading Thursday, after the largest US maker of memory semiconductors indicated data center demand is compensating for a slowly recovering market for personal computers and smartphones. Apple is aiming to sell the Vision Pro in February, the company has also developed a breakthrough method for Running LLMs on iPhones. Google might already be replacing some Ad sales jobs with AI. Google will pay US$700 million to settle claims by a group of state attorneys general. BlackRock’s proposed bitcoin ETF will now allow cash redemptions after pushback from the SEC. In Canada, HIVE announced a $25 million bought deal. Sophic Client, Legend Power reported Q4 F2023 results, management is focused on advancing sales opportunities. Sophic Client, Kraken received a Synthetic Aperture Sonar Order from NATO CMRE. Sophic Client Ionik unveiled a fully rebranded website, taking another step in its brand evolution.

With the Fed possibly pivoting to rate cuts in 2024, Dow Jones hit an all-time high, S&P 500, Nasdaq composite, Russell 2000 and S&P MidCap 400 – all hit 52-week highs. For the week, Dow Jones was up 2.9%, S&P 500 gained 2.5%, and Nasdaq composite rose 2.85%. Publicly traded electronic signature company DocuSign is working with advisers to explore a sale, potentially setting up one of the largest leveraged buyouts in recent years. A private equity consortium led by Insight Partners and Clearlake Capital Group is in advanced talks to take data analytics software company, Alteryx private for around US$5 billion, including debt. Global Payments is considering an acquisition of US peer Shift4. TikTok and Indonesian internet firm GoTo, have announced a deal in which TikTok will acquire GoTo’s Tokopedia e-commerce subsidiary in Indonesia. Oracle stock dropped 8% on slower revenue growth. Adobe shares fell 6% after hours after the company issued a revenue projection for its new fiscal year that implied a smaller boost from its new artificial intelligence products than investors had been hoping. Etsy is laying off around 11% of employees, as the site struggles to grow sales amid fierce competition from bargain-priced sellers like Shein and Temu. Epic Games’ victory against Google has put Apple back under App Store pressure. In Canada, Sophic Client, Kraken maintained strong Q4 service utilization, with a record number of survey awards. Sophic Client, Xcyte Digital, hosted the Metaverse Spectrum and celebrated a successful business conference, expo, awards, and pitch fest, where 27 companies had the opportunity to pitch to a panel of judges and connect with over 120 investors. TMX Group, the owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange, said on Wednesday it had acquired an around 78% stake in U.S. data analytics company VettaFi Holdings for US$848 million ($1.14 billion).