Weekly Investment News and Analysis

Last week, Dow Jones fell 0.3%, S&P 500 was down 2.6%, and Nasdaq composite lost 4.7%, with Friday being its worst one day decline in over a year. Strong macroeconomic jobs data sparked interest rate fears, triggering a semiconductor-led selloff. Earlier in the week, global tech infrastructure spend and mega-listings reached unprecedented heights. Anthropic filed for a confidential Q4 IPO after closing a US$65 billion raise at a US$900 billion valuation, annualized revenue hit US$47 billion. ChatGPT surpassed 1 billion MAUs, and Anthropic’s Claude app grew 640% y/y. SpaceX is targeting a historic US$75 billion IPO at a US$1.7 trillion valuation. The company announced a US$4.16 billion Space Force contract and lucrative compute leasing deals, pulling US$1.25 billion monthly from Anthropic and US$920 million from Google. Google expanded its equity raise to US$84.75 billion to fund AI infrastructure. SoftBank committed US$87.5 billion to French AI data centers. SK Hynix crossed a US$1 trillion valuation. Apple is tapping Google Cloud’s Nvidia Blackwell chips to power its September Siri overhaul. Microsoft launched its “Scout” AI agents and custom models. Intel announced its Crescent Island inference chip. Broadcom reported 48% revenue growth, but guidance disappointed investors. CrowdStrike will split its stock 4-for-1. IBM pledged US$10 billion to quantum R&D, competing with Microsoft’s new Majorana 2 chip. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase formed a stablecoin consortium. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney launched the “AI for all” strategy, featuring a $500 million Tech Growth Fund. Shopify expanded its buyback program by US$3 billion to counter AI-driven short pressure. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Ionik reported Q1 growth and advanced a significant debt reorganization alongside a debt facility extension to June 25, 2026. Intermap expanded its Aquarius platform deployment with Generali into Central Europe, reinforcing its 80% recurring revenue mix. Cybeats Technologies secured an enterprise agreement for SBOM Studio with a global industrial software leader.