Connect with us

CryptoCurrency

Asian shares gain after China says more help is needed for its slowing economy

Published

on

Asian shares gain after China says more help is needed for its slowing economy


BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares gained ground on Monday, with stocks in China rising more than 1% after the finance minister said over the weekend that more stimulus is needed for the slowing economy.

U.S. futures were little changed and oil prices retreated.

China’s finance minister said Saturday that the government was looking at additional ways to boost the economy, but he didn’t give details of a major new stimulus plan. Stock investors and analysts have been hoping for a plan of up to 2 trillion yuan, or about $280 billion.

Advertisement

But any expressions of support tend to push prices higher, and the “national team” of big state-run companies and financial institutions tend to weigh in with stock purchases to help stabilize markets, analysts say.

“The devil, as they say, is always in the details—or in this case, the glaring lack of them. When it comes to Chinese policy briefings, it’s usually all sizzle and no steak,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. “By mid-week, we’ll see if the market bid has legs, and by month’s end, we’ll know for sure if Beijing is delivering the goods or if it’s just more smoke and mirrors.”

The Shanghai Composite index rose 1.7% to 3,271.06 and the smaller market in Shenzhen gained 1.9%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.4% to 21,164.93.

China reported that consumer inflation weakened in September and that wholesale prices fell further, reflecting continued weakness in domestic demand that has spurred the government into a flurry of measures meant to revive falling housing sales and other spending.

Advertisement

Large-scale Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands on Monday appeared to have scant impact on markets.

Taiwan’s Taiex was up 0.4%.

Tokyo’s markets were closed for a public holiday. In South Korea, the Kospi added 1% to 2,622.43, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.5% to 8,253.60.

The advance in Asia followed a strong close on Friday on Wall Street as U.S. stocks rose to records, lifted by strong profits at big banks.

Advertisement

The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to 5,815.03, topping its all-time high set earlier in the week and closing out its fifth straight winning week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1% to set its own record, at 42,863.86. The Nasdaq composite lagged the market with a gain of 0.3% after a slide for Tesla kept it in check. It closed at 18,342.94.

Wells Fargo rose 5.6% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. JPMorgan Chase climbed 4.4% after reporting a milder drop in profit than analysts feared. It was the strongest single force pushing upward on the S&P 500.

BlackRock, meanwhile, rose 3.6% after likewise delivering better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The investment giant ended September managing a record $11.5 trillion in total assets for its customers.

Advertisement

The gains for banks helped make up for Tesla’s 8.8% tumble after the electric-vehicle maker unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi on Thursday night. Critics highlighted a lack of details about its planned rollout.

Following the unveiling of the “Cybercab,” potential rival Uber Technologies jumped 10.8% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Lyft rose 9.6%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were mixed following the latest updates on inflation at the wholesale level and on sentiment among U.S. consumers.

Prices paid by producers were 1.8% higher in September than a year earlier, improved but not by as much as economists expected.

Advertisement

In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 91 cents to $74.65 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 95 cents to $78.09 per barrel.

The dollar rose to 149.30 Japanese yen from 149.08 late Friday. The euro fell to $1.0926 from $1.0935.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

CryptoCurrency

Time to Hit Buy on These 2 Software Stocks, Says Daniel Ives

Published

on

Time to Hit Buy on These 2 Software Stocks, Says Daniel Ives


It’s no secret that tech stocks have been powering the market gains over the past few years, and software stocks were among the biggest drivers of this growth.

Multiple factors are propelling the software industry forward, such as the rapid advancement of AI technology, high demand for IT solutions, and the ongoing expansion of the global digital economy.

Wedbush tech expert Daniel Ives has been watching the tech industry, and his take on it points to continued strength supported by AI and cloud expansion.

Advertisement

“Solid enterprise spending, digital advertising rebound, and the AI Revolution will drive tech stocks higher into year-end in our view,” Ives opined. “We believe 70% of global workloads will be on the cloud by the end of 2025, up from less than 50% today.”

Keeping that in mind, Ives goes on to add that the time has come to hit buy on two software stocks. They may not be household names, but according to the TipRanks data, both stocks are Buy-rated – and Ives sees significantly more upside to each than the consensus on the Street. Let’s take a closer look.

Couchbase (BASE)

We’ll start with Couchbase, a modern database platform provider that offers users and developers everything they need to support a wide range of applications – from cloud, to edge, to AI. Couchbase bills itself as a one-stop-shop for data developers and architects, making its services available through its powerful database-as-a-service platform, Capella. Organizations using the service can quickly create applications and services that deliver premium customer experiences, giving top-end performance at affordable prices.

Advertisement

The Capella platform brings the popular as-a-service subscription model to the database industry. The company can support database services for a wide range of AI applications, including the latest gen-AI tech, as well as database search, mobile access, and analytic functions. Customers can also choose self-managed services through Couchbase’s servers, with on-premises management for both multicloud and community apps.

Couchbase’s database service has found success in a wide range of fields, including the gaming, healthcare, entertainment, retail, travel, and utility sectors. The company’s customer base includes such major names as Verizon, UPS, Walmart, Cisco, Comcast, GE, and PayPal.

Turning to the financial results, we see that Couchbase reported its fiscal 2Q25 figures at the start of last month. The top line of $51.6 million was up almost 20% year-over-year and came in just over the forecast, beating expectations by nearly a half-million dollars. At the bottom line, the company ran a net loss of 6 cents per share in non-GAAP measures, but that was 3 cents per share better than had been anticipated.

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

CryptoCurrency

Ripple files Form C, appeals SEC ruling on XRP institutional sales

Published

on

Ripple files Form C, appeals SEC ruling on XRP institutional sales


Ripple challenges SEC’s ruling on institutional XRP sales, claiming the Howey test was misapplied.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

CryptoCurrency

Bitcoin analyst: $100K BTC price by February 'completely within reason'

Published

on

Bitcoin analyst: $100K BTC price by February 'completely within reason'


BTC price trajectory appears all but destined for six figures in the mid term — despite nearly eight months of Bitcoin market consolidation.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

CryptoCurrency

1 Top Stock to Buy Hand Over Fist Before That Happens

Published

on

1 Top Stock to Buy Hand Over Fist Before That Happens


2024 is turning out to be a solid year for the global semiconductor industry, driven by multiple catalysts. These include the booming demand for chips that can manage artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, a turnaround in the smartphone market’s fortunes, and a recovery in the personal computer (PC) market.

These factors explain why the global semiconductor industry’s revenue is expected to jump 16% in 2024 to $611.2 billion, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). That points toward a nice turnaround from last year, when the semiconductor industry’s revenue fell 8%. Even better, the semiconductor space is expected to keep growing in 2025 as well, with WSTS projecting a 12.5% increase in the industry’s earnings to $687.4 billion next year.

More specifically, WSTS predicts a whopping 25% increase in the memory market’s revenue in 2025 to $204.3 billion. As it turns out, memory is expected to be the fastest-growing semiconductor segment next year as well, following an estimated jump of almost 77% in this segment’s revenue in 2024.

Advertisement

There’s one company that could help investors tap this fast-growing niche of the semiconductor market next year: Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU). Let’s look at the reasons why buying this semiconductor stock could turn out to be a smart move right now.

WSTS isn’t the only forecaster expecting the memory market to surge higher next year. Market research firm TrendForce estimates that the sales of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) could jump 51% in 2025, while the NAND flash storage market could clock 29% growth. Both these markets are expected to reach record highs next year.

The growth in these memory markets will be driven by a combination of strong demand and improved pricing. TrendForce is forecasting a 35% year-over-year increase in DRAM prices next year, driven by the increasing demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that’s used in AI processors, as well as the growth in DRAM deployed in servers. Meanwhile, the growing demand for enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs) and the growth in smartphone storage will be tailwinds for the NAND flash market.

These positive trends explain why Micron is set to begin its new fiscal year on a bright note. The company’s revenue in fiscal 2024 (which ended on Aug. 29) increased 61% year over year to $25.1 billion. The company posted a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profit of $1.30 per share, compared to a loss of $4.45 per share in fiscal 2023, driven by a big jump in its operating margin on account of recovering memory prices.

Advertisement



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

CryptoCurrency

A truly decentralized system would decentralize authority — Cardano exec

Published

on

A truly decentralized system would decentralize authority — Cardano exec


Cardano Foundation chief technology officer Giorgio Zinetti told Cointelegraph that centralized authority is good for speed, but decentralized governance would give long-term sustainability. 



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

CryptoCurrency

Intel’s former CEO tried to buy Nvidia almost 2 decades ago

Published

on

Intel's former CEO tried to buy Nvidia almost 2 decades ago


Tech pioneer Intel (INTC) has seemingly missed out on the artificial intelligence boom — and part of it can reportedly be traced back to a decision not to buy the chipmaker at the center of it all almost two decades ago.

Intel’s former chief executive Paul Otellini wanted to buy Nvidia in 2005 when the chipmaker was mostly known for making computer graphics chips, which some executives thought had potential for data centers, The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. However, Intel’s board did not approve of the $20 billion acquisition — which would’ve been the company’s most expensive yet — and Otellini dropped the effort, according to The New York Times.

Instead, the board was reportedly more interested in an in-house graphics project called Larrabee, which was led by now-chief executive Pat Gelsinger.

Advertisement

Almost two decades later, Nvidia (NVDA) has become the second-most valuable public company in the world and continuously exceeds Wall Street’s high expectations. Intel, on the other hand, has seen its shares fall around 53% so far this year and is now worth less than $100 billion — around 30 times less than Nvidia’s $3.4 trillion market cap.

In August, Intel shares fell 27% after it missed revenue expectations with its second-quarter earnings and announced layoffs. The company missed profit expectations partly due to its decision to “more quickly ramp” its Core Ultra artificial intelligence CPUs, or core processing units, that can handle AI applications, Gelsinger said on the company’s earnings call.

And Nvidia wasn’t the only AI darling Intel missed out on.

Over a decade after passing on Nvidia, Intel made another strategic miss by reportedly deciding not to buy a stake in OpenAI, which had not yet kicked off the current AI hype with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.

Advertisement

Former Intel chief executive Bob Swan didn’t think OpenAI’s generative AI models would come to market soon enough for the investment to be worth it, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The AI startup had been interested in Intel, sources told Reuters (TRI), so it could depend less on Nvidia and build its own infrastructure.

For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.





Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2024 WordupNews.com