Weekly Investment News and Analysis

Last week, Dow Jones lost 2.25%, S&P 500 fell 2% and Nasdaq was down 1.8%. That said, markets ended the week on a better note after the Fed’s less dovish outlook Wednesday. As we enter the seasonal Santa Claus period – it remains to be seen whether Friday’s gains are built upon. Regardless, risks are on the horizon in January – including, potential profit taking on 2024 gains for tax planning purposes and any US tariff related noise, which for now has been largely shrugged off by investors. Fintech Chime filed confidential paperwork for an IPO. Databricks raised US$8.6 billion in funding at a US$62 billion valuation, with plans to raise US$10 billion total. Micron’s shares tumbled on weak demand expectations for consumer chips. Accenture beat quarterly revenue estimates on strong demand for genAI services. Google released new AI reasoning models and prepped chatbots in search. OpenAI announced the new reasoning model, ‘o3’ and made ChatGPT available through phone, text. Chinese shopping app Temu was once again the most downloaded free app in the U.S. In Canada, VitalHub announced a $30 million bought deal. Sophic Client, Legend Power Systems announced a Non-Brokered Private Placement for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $1.5 million. The Company also reported Q4 (Sept) F2024 financial results. Revenue was $705 thousand versus $159 thousand in Q4 F2023. Sophic Client, NowVertical Group announced the release of a New AI financial agent, updating its NowHub-finance solution. Sophic Client, Cybeats provided an update, highlighting the Company’s progress since commercializing its products. BlackBerry will sell Cylance for $160 million, a fraction of the $1.4 billion it paid in 2018. Clio’s record-breaking funding round provided some interesting insight into Canadian companies’ preference to stay private for longer.