Weekly Investment News and Analysis

Last week, major indexes rose for the sixth straight week. Dow Jones rose, ~1% and a hit a record high Friday, S&P 500 was up 0.85%, and hit a record close Friday, Nasdaq composite rose 0.8%. Chinese robotaxi firm, Pony AI filed for a US IPO. Zuora, which sells software for businesses to manage subscription billing, has agreed to be bought by private equity firm Silver Lake and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC for US$1.7 billion. Uber reportedly explored a possible bid for Expedia in a ‘super app’ growth push. Stripe is in talks to acquire Bridge for US$1 billion, Stripe has made it clear that crypto is a huge priority for the company. Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller said he regrets selling his entire Nvidia stake, and is looking to buy again. Shares in semiconductor equipment maker ASML fell 16% on Tuesday, after the Dutch company published financial results a day early, issuing disappointing sales forecasts. TSMC’s profit rose 54% on AI demand. Netflix stock hit an all time high in Q3 results. Amazon and Google are also investing in nuclear power and backing small nuclear reactors. iPhone reportedly had its best ever and nearly topped Samsung globally per research firm Canalys. In Canada, a Hong Kong billionaire increased their stake in Well Health Technologies with a $81-million private share purchase. Sophic Client, Kraken Robotics filed its final short form prospectus in connection with its bought deal public offering. The Company also received $13 million of subsea battery orders. Sophic Client, Intermap announced that Česká podnikatelská pojišťovna (ČPP), a subsidiary of the Vienna Insurance Group subscribed to Intermap’s innovative solution for determining the market price of real estate properties. Sophic Client, American Aires and MBM Motorsports partnered to protect NASCAR Cup team from in-race EMF radiation in an innovative sponsorship.

Last week, Nasdaq and S&P 500 both gained 1.1%, while Dow Jones gained 1.2% – the fifth straight weekly rise for all major indices. Cerebras Systems is likely to postpone its IPO. CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed AI startup that rents out chips to other companies, announced that it has a new US$650 million credit line to expand its business and data center portfolio. Shortseller Hindenburg accused Roblox of inflated metrics. Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled autonomous Robotaxis he says will be available in 2026. Google’s grip on search appears to be slipping as TikTok and AI startups mount challenges. The Justice Department said Tuesday that it may ask a federal judge to force Google to divest Chrome, Google Play and Android, in order to fix Google’s illegal monopoly in general search engines and search text advertising. More than a dozen US states sued TikTok over allegedly harming kids, and the company has reportedly earmarked US$1 billion for future EU privacy fines. Delta Air Lines spent US$170 million on customer and crew-related costs in the wake of the CrowdStrike outage in the summer. Apple will sell its TV+ service on Amazon Prime video. In Canada, Sophic Client Plurilock and CrowdStrike partnered to secure critical infrastructure and organizations. Plurilock also announced a new US$1.7 million sale with an existing client, a major semiconductor manufacturer. Sophic Client, Kraken Robotics was featured in Motley Fool as a no-brainer tech stock to buy right now for less than $200. Sophic Client American Aires announced a partnership with dynamic UFC Lightweight title contender Michael Chandler. Sophic Client NowVertical highlighted a solution that provides simplified data management and provides greater transparency into partner marketing activities. Sophic Client Xcyte Digital, unveiled advanced AI capabilities.

Last week, Dow Jones rose 0.1% and hit a record close, S&P 500 rose 0.2%, and Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%. That said, 10-year Treasury yield spiked 23 basis points to 3.98%, for its biggest weekly gain in nearly a year, two-year yield, which is more closely tied to Fed policy, shot up the most in two years by 37 basis points, to 3.93%. U.S. startups raised US$37.5 billion in the three months ended in September, up 8% y/y. OpenAI completed a US$6.6 billion raise, that values the company at US$157 billion post-money. The company also secured a US$4 billion revolving credit line. OpenAI also told employees Wednesday it plans to allow them to sell some of their stock through a tender offer. Cerebras, which designs chips for training and running AImodels, disclosed in its IPO that it lost US$127 million last year on US$78 million in revenue. Shein is hosting informal roadshows in London and New York in preparation for the company’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange. Accenture will train 30,000 employees on Nvidia’s full stack of AI technologies and start a new business group dedicated to AI. Google is considering nuclear power to feed its energy-hungry AI data centers. Kalshi, a prediction market startup, went live with its betting market that allows U.S. users to bet on who will win the November presidential election. In Canada, Toronto-based, Koho Financial raised a $190 million round of debt and equity funding as it continues its efforts to secure a Schedule 1 banking licence. Sophic Client, upsized its bought deal to $45 million from $25 million, the stock is trading above deal price, which bodes well. Sophic Client, Clear Blue Technologies closed a Convertible Debenture financing, raising $2.2 million. Sophic Client, Plurilock signed a US$19.3 million contract with a S&P 500 semiconductor company, and also announced nearly US$2 million of Critical Services contracts. Sophic Client, American Aires expects to receive mass media exposure through upcoming appearance on Military Makeover with Montel.

Cerebras Systems, is targeting raising US$750 million to US$1 billion in an IPO, potentially valuing the company between US$7 to US$8 billion. Fintech Chime has reportedly hired Morgan Stanley to lead its IPO. Cyberecurity startup Wiz is reportedly in share sale talks at up to a US$20 billion valuation. Anthropic is discussing a new funding round aiming for a valuation between US$30 to US$40 billion, projecting US$1 billion in annualized revenue for this year. OpenAI is raising up to US$6.5 billion in its latest funding round, which could value the company at US$150 billion. Apple is reportedly no longer participating in the round. Hours after OpenAI’s CTO announced her departure, two more research leaders at the ChatGPT maker said they also planned to leave. New data from payments group Stripe suggests AI groups are making revenues at an unprecedented rate, scaling to over US$30 million in annualised revenue in 20 months — 5x faster than SaaS companies. Nvidia shares climbed as much as 5% on Tuesday as Barron’s reported CEO Jensen Huang is done with planned sales of stock. In Canada, Lightspeed is reportedly exploring a sale. Propel Holdings announced a $95.9 million acquisition of UK-based QuidMarket to expand its online lending platform. Propel is funding this with a $100 million equity offering led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Scotia Capital Inc. Kneat announced a $35 million bought deal led by Cormark Securities. Scribenote, an AI startup from Kitchener-Waterloo, raised $8.2 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Sophic Capital, Client Intermap in partnership with CACI has been selected by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (“NGA”) as one of 10 qualified vendors for the Luno A program. The Luno A contract, valued at up to $290 million over five years, marks a substantial increase from the initial EIM budget of $29 million. Sophic Client, Intermap Technologies was selected by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for the Luno A program, a US$290 million contract over five years, to leverage AI-driven geospatial intelligence for real-time insights. Sophic Client, Kraken Robotics received $3 million in orders for its AI-enabled synthetic aperture sonar systems for naval use, indicating increased demand in mine countermeasure operations.

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.

Last week, Dow Jones rose 1.3%, S&P 500 gained 1.45%, and Nasdaq composite was up 1.4%. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell indicated interest rate cuts are imminent. The next catalyst for tech investors is Nvidia earnings next week. AMD is acquiring ZT Systems, which sells AI infrastructure for cloud computing firms, for US$4.9 billion in cash and stock. Palo Alto Networks shares traded up nearly 3% in after-hours trading after the Company’s earnings report, and are up nearly 20% year-to-date. Snowflake posted stronger than projected growth and raised its projection for full year growth. Even so, Snowflake shares fell 8% in after-hours trading. Sophic Client, Kraken Robotics reported strong Q2 results – revenue increased 67% to $22.8 million, Adjusted EBITDA increased 79% to $5.4 million. Guidance remains unchanged — revenue $90.0 to $100.0 million, Adjusted EBITDA $18.0 to $24.0 million. The stock was also called out as a top pick on BNN by a portfolio manager. Sophic Client, Legend Power reported Q3 F2024 results. Revenue of $1.04 million versus $470 thousand in Q3 F2023. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $392 thousand versus a $884 thousand loss in Q3 F2023. Initial orders and deliveries of Gen3 systems and an LOI for another $3 million from the DOD, brought order visibility to $5.5 million over the last few quarters. Sophic Client, Xcyte Digital announced a significant expansion of its partner ecosystem, marking a major step forward in its mission to revolutionize the virtual and hybrid event landscape. As TikTok Shop gains traction, YouTube expanded its partnership with Shopify to onboard more brands for its YouTube Shopping affiliate program. Bitfarms agreed to acquire Stronghold Digital Mining for ~US$125 million in stock while the Company fends off a takeover attempt by Riot Platforms. Agilysys acquired Markham based Book4Time for $204 million.

Last week, Dow Jones was up 2.9%, S&P 500 rose 3.9% (its best weekly gain in 2024), and Nasdaq composite gained 5.3% — all strong gains from Aug. 5 lows. Investors are back lavishing millions onto megacaps as the high-flying tech stocks resume their climb, shrugging off the vestiges of last week’s market meltdown. Traders poured a net US$210 million into the Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF on Monday, the biggest one-day influx in the fund’s nearly 20-year history. Among the fund’s biggest holdings are Apple, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft — the leaders of the so-called Magnificent Seven which have accounted for the bulk of the market’s gains this year. In Canada, Sophic Client OneSoft entered into an Arrangement Agreement to be acquired by irth Solutions for $0.88/sh in cash, a premium of 42% and 28% to the closing price and 20-day volume weighted average closing price of the Shares. Sophic Client UGE International announced the closing of its Plan of Arrangement to be acquired at $2/sh. Sophic Client, Intermap announced 125% revenue growth in Q2. Sophic Client, NowVertical Group, reported Q2 results, revenue was up 2% y/y adjusted for recent divestitures. Income from Operations was US$0.7 million, a 125% y/y increase due to gross margin and administrative expense improvements. Sophic Client ADM Endeavors reported Q2 results – Revenue was US$1.2 million, a 5% decrease y/y, but up 16% q/q. Sophic Client, Plurilock filed a Nonprovisional Patent application for AI-driven cloud access security broker technology for generative AI – hitting a new 52 week high. Well Health plans to spin out, and publicly list its SaaS and services business in 2025. Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms raised its stake in rival Bitfarms to 18.9%. Toronto based Radical Ventures, raised almost US$800 million for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Radical Ventures was an early backer of model maker Cohere, recently valued at US$5.5 billion.

After a brutal Monday, due to fears of the yen-carry-trade unwinding and an Nvidia AI chip delay, the market ended the week well above Monday’s lows. Dow Jones fell 0.6% last week, S&P 500 ended the week almost flat, and Nasdaq composite lost 0.2%. WeRide, a Chinese autonomous driving company, is getting ready for its U.S. IPO. The company is selling almost 6.5 million American depositary shares, priced between US$15.50 and US$18.50 each. Shares of AI chipmaker Black Sesame tumbled as much as 35% on their Hong Kong debut, dealing a blow to Hong Kong’s efforts to lure more technology listings. Nvidia shares dropped 6% Monday after reports that the company’s upcoming AI chips are facing production delays by at least three months due to design flaws. Groq, an Nvidia challenger, raised US$640 million in Series D funding at a valuation of US$2.8 billion. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Apple in half as part of a selling spree in Q2. A federal U.S. judge ruled Monday that Google has illegally held a monopoly in two market areas: search and text advertising. Later in the week, Palantir’s shares surged on a rosy profit outlook signaling AI demand. Uber posted sharply higher profits, and Airbnb warned of a U.S. growth slowdown. In Canada, Shopify’s revenue grew 21% y/y, beating the company’s own outlook of high-teens growth, sending its shares up more than 20% on Wednesday morning. Sophic Client UGE International announced that the closing of its previously announced go private transaction, is now expected to occur on or about August 14, 2024, as opposed to on or about August 8, 2024. Sophic Client Intermap closed the final tranche of its Private Placement, for a total of ~$3.3 million raised. Sophic Client Clear Blue Technologies’ stakeholders provided a financing package of $2.2 – $2.9 million.

Despite a bullish Wednesday, markets had a bad week. Dow Jones lost 2.1%, as did S&P 500. Nasdaq composite was down 3.35%, and is now in traditional correction territory. Cerebras, an Nvidia rival that develops AI chips, has filed confidentially for an IPO. Elliott Management, a hedge fund, said Nvidia and other megacap technology stocks were in “bubble land,” according to a letter viewed by the Financial Times. Microsoft shares fell 4% in after-hours trading Tuesday after it said revenue from enterprise software and cloud server rentals rose more slowly in Q2 than in Q1. Shares of Nvidia and other chip firms jumped Wednesday after Microsoft said Tuesday night that it plans to continue spending tens of billions of dollars on new data centers and chips for AI. Meta’s revenue rose 22% in Q2, and Apple revenue rose 5% despite weak iPhone results. Amazon Web Services revenue grew 19% y/y to US$26.3 billion in Q2, AWS’s fastest growth since 2022 but still significantly lower growth than at smaller cloud rivals Microsoft and Google. AMD projected higher AI chip sales. Qualcomm reported earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations. Intel said Thursday that it would cut 15,000 jobs or more than 15% of its workforce over the next two years and embark on a US$10 billion cost-reduction plan to improve its competitiveness. Morgan Stanley will allow financial advisors to offer Bitcoin ETFs. In Canada, Sophic Client, Plurilock appointed a 35-year veteran of enterprise technology IT and solutions sales to its industry advisory council. Sophic Client Xcyte Digital, announced advanced AI-powered captioning and translation features. We also sat down with CEO, Randy Selman, to discuss recent acquisitions and future milestones for the company.